Don A Velvet Glove
by Laryna6
Summary: 02 AU. Ichijouji Ken was one of the youngest, sweetest, most pathetic of the Chosen Children. An adorable child saddened by his best friend's tragic loss, loyally clinging to the hope he yet lived: What hero would not spring to the aid of the Child of Kindness? What fool would ruin so perfect a disguise by giving their new host body an evil makeover?
1. The Masque of Innocence

_Ye gods, these muses! Effing rabid dragons #$^# ..._

 _I thought I'd combine a couple of different prompts, but then a certain muse went 'why would I possibly want to do what_ he _did in the anime when I could do what_ I _did in the anime instead?'_

 _This picks up after the third Wonderswan game, when Millenniummon's base blew up with Ryo and Veemon inside it while Chosen Children from all over the world watched and knew that this was the outcome of the Sovereign's plan, a plan that involved all of them being manipulated and lied to._

 _The D-1 tournament, from a Watsonian perspective, established that_ the Adventure Harmonious Ones/Four Holy Beasts/Sovereign (used in Tamers) see the Chosen Children as either enemies or servants, _not_ allies worth of respect _._

 _People have fridged the tournament being a mass of lies with 'the Four Holy Beasts/Sovereign mistrusted Ryo because they knew he was Millenniummon's partner,' but Ryo was not the only person lied to, traumatized, etc. in that debacle._

 _You_ do not _pull that kind of shit on your allies in wartime, and beings who are thousands of years old would damn well know it. That kind of misinformation is begging for massive friendly fire casualties, not to mention how they will react when they find out…_

 _And Taichi is willing to trust a single word that comes out of Azulongmon's mouth in 02? Since the fourth game isn't part of this continuity, the cast's amnesia about Millenniummon and the tournament needs a justification other than Timey Wimey Ball, and there's in-universe methods of causing targeted amnesia._

 _I'm not a fan of Ron The Death Eater, but Hanlon's Razor is 'never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity/ignorance,' and the Four Holy Beasts really do have to know better than this. So either malice or they are just_ so damn stupid _that they are not competent to be given a job as important as keeping the Digital World running, which is… given Adventure and 02, accurate._

 _We see what happens to the Digital World when Mugendramon & Millenniummon are ruling it: the Four Holy Beasts are absolutely the lesser of two evils, but the lesser of two evils is still an evil. Mistreat the allies who came to your aid in time of war, and they'll remember it when the war's over. If you can make them forget, in theory that's not a problem, but if you try, fail and they find out about it once the bigger threat's gone..._

 _Edit: Switching everything over to sub terms. Pardon my dust._

* * *

"They're not what I thought they were." Looking down, for a moment Gennai looked old. Not the way he had when his body really _was_ old, because the thing Piemon stuck into him damaged his data. No, back then he'd tried his hardest to be some kind of cheerful.

Now his gods had returned, his youth was restored, and here he was in his cottage under the lake with his best friend and one of the Chosen Children who had stayed with him for months.

The other one wasn't here anymore.

"The Digital World needs its gods," Gennai said. "It's still severely damaged. But I can't be glad anymore that the Four Holy Beasts have returned. The Order tried for _millennia_ to unseal them. The last they were able to contact us was centuries before I was made. All we had were stories of a time when the Digital World was safer. When we were protected, when no one would dare wipe out our Temples one by one…" Until Gennai's was the only one left. "Do you know what they told me? They told me that _there was no other way_. Right after they told me that I was right, and Ryo's Crest _was_ Miracles _. There should have been another way_. He could have made it possible. He fought for all of us, he came to fight for _them_ , and not only treating Ryo like that, but lying to all of the Chosen Children?"

An adult wouldn't talk about things like this with a kid like Ken, but Gennai had never been a child, and even though he understood that the Chosen Children were like In-trainings and Child Digimon, coddling them had never occurred to him.

"But I was right," Ken said, sitting on the wood floor next to the wall with the fish swimming by on the other side of it. "Ryo is still alive. Thank you for telling me, Gennai."

"He's not necessarily alive," his now-young old friend cautioned him. "It was impossible for anyone to survive an explosion like that, but since they confirmed he has the Crest of Miracles, it would have been possible for him. _Possible_."

"You said he 'has' the Crest of Miracles." Ken grinned, hugging Wormmon in his lap. "So I'm not the only one who knows he's alive anymore! I know that Ryo will come back to us if there's any way he can, so if it's not impossible for him he definitely will."

"I pray-" Gennai closed his eyes. "I hope you're right." He sighed. "They're going to make more of us. I'll have brothers again. More of the weakest beings in the Digital World, when things are still unsettled like this, even with Millenniummon gone. They'll need training, and Piccolomon and I are the only ones who can teach them how to use barriers and the other things they'll need to know to survive and help the Chosen. I wanted to protest their decisions, but I couldn't."

"You have to protect your little brothers," Ken agreed, nodding.

"I know all about remaining quiet to survive," Gennai said, "but that was to survive the Dark Masters. I should be able to trust in the gods. I should have faith that they had a _reason_ , or I should at least trust them enough to ask what it was." That they would answer his questions instead of rejecting him for heresy. Keep him from contaminating the new clones. "I fear that telling you that your friend may still be alive is all I can do, for any of you. After all that the Chosen Children have done for the Digital World." When he helped call them there. "Instead of asking Taichi's forgiveness, I ask it of the Child of Kindness." So it was cold comfort, when Ken might be saying he hadn't done anything wrong because he forgave him, not because he thought that Gennai was genuinely doing the best he could.

"Millenniummon was a god," Ken said, looking down at Wormmon. "I don't think that being a god makes someone a good guy. There are lots of stories in books about gods doing really evil things, and everyone having to worship them anyway because otherwise the gods would punish them for hubris. Or because they needed the gods to keep making the crops grow and the world work properly, like the Digital World needs the Four Holy Beasts. The Four Holy Beasts lied to everyone and sent Ryo and V-mon to die. I don't think they're very good gods either." He frowned, glaring for a moment. "If Ryo comes back and forgives them, then I will, but until that happens I won't forgive them. They made Ryo watch Digimon die for some stupid _game_ and now he's gone. You're my friend too, and now they're making you sad and afraid for everyone. I can't forgive people who are cruel like that."

"… _You_ cannot forgive them?" There was sadness in Gennai's eyes, but almost a bit of hope. Like he needed someone to give him permission to feel used.

"Well, they haven't said they're sorry," Ken pointed out. "Did they?"

"They said it was necessary, to bring peace to the Digital World."

"That's not the same as sorry," Piccolomon said. "Out with the old, in with the new. Four Ultimates throwing their weight around, not caring who gets hurt: the Four Holy Beasts are an improvement over the Dark Masters, but the strong have a duty to the weak."

Ken nodded. "I want to help Wormmon, but sometimes I'm glad that my crest doesn't help _me_ and Wormmon be strong. I don't want Wormmon to have to fight," he hugged him. "And my partner _has_ to protect me. If other Digimon are helping me, then they're helping me because they think it's the right thing to do."

Gennai nodded. "Ken," he said, standing up, "I want you to have this."

"Oh, what is it?" Wormmon hopped down off Ken's lap so he could stand up to take it from Gennai. "Is this a crest?"

"It's yours," Gennai told him. "The crests channel and store the power of the Chosen, and they also use some of that power to protect their bearers. The Four Holy Beasts … They did not appreciate Taichi's outburst. Within the Digital World, all beings are data, and the gods have the power to alter that data. Your crest will protect you, and Wormmon."

Ken paled, looking horrified. "You really think they'd do something to, to _Taichi_?" The hero Ken cheered on when he fought Diablomon, the hero Ken had to try to step in for when Millenniummon froze him? Gennai had seen Taichi thanking Ken, telling him that he couldn't have done it better himself. "Controlling people is what evil Digimon do!"

"That was what I believed," said Gennai, and Ken instantly hugged the artificial human. He looked up to see Piccolomon's hand on Gennai's shoulder. "My code is an open book to Azulongmon. I couldn't let them think I agreed with Taichi." When before it was his _duty_ to support the Chosen Children, his 'old' masters were asking him to betray the only ones he had known. "If they decide to wipe some of my knowledge, that will be knowledge and experience won at great cost."

"If there are little kid artificial humans, they'll need you and Piccolomon," Ken agreed. "It's okay! I'll remember, and wait for Ryo. He's beaten an evil god four times now, he can definitely beat four evil gods! You'll see, he'll show up with some Digimon and say 'Hey!' like he was never gone. I wasn't invited to the Tournament, so the Four Holy Beasts probably think me and Wormmon are too weak to bother about. I'll show them what happens to people who underestimate Wormmon and me just because we're small!"

"Yay!" Wormmon said happily. "I know you can do it, Ken!"

Gennai chuckled, patting him on the head. "You're too kind. They're prioritizing restoring the dimensional barrier, instead of healing the world," Gennai said, solemn again. "My guess is that they want to seal the Digital World off from Earth while they regain their power, so they don't have to deal with the Chosen, or any other humans who could potentially gather an army of Digimon and challenge them. I wanted you and Wormmon to at least have a chance to say goodbye before you were separated."

"I won't be able to see Ken?" Wormmon trembled.

"He can come with me!" Ken said. "He'll hide in my room, and my parents don't pay attention to me so they won't notice I'm eating more!" He frowned. "But what about everyone else's partners?"

" _You_ never had a crest," Gennai told him. "The power comes from the Chosen, not the crest, but it's possible they might learn how to channel their power without a crest, with training. Separating them from their Digimon will atrophy the bond. I would warn Tailmon – she could figure out how to slip them away if anyone could – but Azulongmon asked about Tailmon specifically. He was more concerned about her than Agumon and Gabumon, and they can become Omegamon. Her absence would be noticed."

"But I'm just one more Wormmon, no one notices us. They'll think I'm in some colony with all the other insects, so I can be with Ken!" Wormmon clapped his front feet together.

Ken smiled. "Nobody notices Wormmon, not when we've got Ultimates helping us, but that means they don't notice Wormmon's healing the Ultimates so they can't win! That's what Ryo said when Wormmon told him what Millenniummon said, and he's right: Millenniummon didn't take us seriously, and that was why we could help beat him when even Taichi couldn't! Don't worry, Gennai. We'll be okay until Ryo gets back and we can help you."

"You're very nice, so I'm glad there will be more Gennai," Wormmon said.

"What about Koushiro? Isn't he the Child of Knowledge?"

"The Four Holy Beasts are very old and very wise," Gennai said. Something he'd been taught that wasn't entirely a good thing. Not anymore. "They weren't concerned about him, not the way they were about the Child of Light and Tailmon."

"Well that proves it," Ken said. "Good guys wouldn't be scared of the Child of _Light_ , right?" He let himself look a little worried for a moment, glancing at Wormmon. "You're not telling us about this so we'll help, are you?" His shoulders slumped. "You want us to not try to help you, except by staying safe."

"You're very loyal to your partner and your friends," Gennai told him. "Taichi has powerful bonds even they would hesitate to tamper with. Not when they can't spare the power. You and Wormmon… If they think about the fact that you trained an army, just like Ryo did…"

"Then we won't be underestimated anymore." Ken nodded. "Don't worry, I know almost as much about not being noticed as Wormmon, and I'll have him with me so we can practice together."

"Keep your head down," Gennai said, tapping him on the top of the head. "Wait for Ryo."

"I will," Ken said, crossing his fingers behind his back where Wormmon and Piccolomon could see.

He saw Piccolomon's smile out of the corner of his eye.

* * *

" _Should you be up this late?"_ he typed, sitting in front of Osamu's computer.

" _It's fine,"_ Wallace typed back. " _You and Koushiro were there for me when Chocomon needed help. I paid Koushiro back in advance,_ " helping during the battle with Diablomon, some highly illegal assistance, _"but I still owe you_. _I can't really ever repay you, either of you, but I still want to do_ something _._ "

Ken smiled. " _I guess I can't talk when I should be at school."_

" _You aren't going to get in trouble, are you? I can finish this solo."_

" _No, that's what's great about my parents not paying attention to me. As long as I keep my exam scores up so Osamu doesn't get mad and stop running interference for me, I could probably get away with murder."_

Another message: _"Can't miss soccer practice, though."_

The first response was a laugh, the second " _Chocomon_... _Chocomon and Terriermon are threatening to bounce on the keyboard if I don't say Hi to Wormmon for them."_

"Hey, Wormmon?" Ken nudged his partner, who was holding up a cookbook almost big enough for him to hide behind.

"Oh? What is it, Ken?" Wormmon asked, lowering the book to look up at him from next to Ken's screen.

"Chocomon and Terriermon say hi."

Wormmon smiled, so happy to be remembered. "Hello! Is Chocomon still okay?"

" _Wormmon says Hello back, and wants to know if Chocomon is still doing ok."_

" _Judging from his appetite, he's never been better. I think he'll be able to stay Lopmon most of the time again soon."_

" _That's a relief."_ Ken smiled. "He's almost back to child stage, Wormmon."

"That's wonderful!"

" _That's wonderful!"_ Ken typed, then paused. " _Actually… my brother's got an interview again. It'd be nice to be there when he gets out of it, and we could get Wormmon some ice cream on the way back."_

" _Ugh, your parents… If mine were like them, Chocomon and Terriermon would probably be sideshow attractions by now."_

" _I know, what if the Digivice was Osamu's? Genius_ and _destined hero like you and Koushiro? You guys have great parents, but Osamu would_ never _get a break!"_ Ken rolled his eyes. " _Not unless he ran away to the Digital World!"_

" _Hey, you know that if you need a place you can run away to… I can whip you up all the ID you want, and this entire state has fewer people in it than most cities! There's plenty of space for even Cherubimon to run around!"_

" _I don't know if I should tell Osamu you offered, Wallace, he may take you up on it. Aaaand… Complied!"_ Ken grinned as the ding sounded. He'd set it to the same as the oven going off, since Wormmon liked cooking.

" _Send it over to me so I can go over it, and get going!"_ Wallace told him.

" _I'll need a minute to upload it, even with your fancy military satellite connection. Not all of us get top of the line every three months, you know."_ Ken added a symbol so Wallace knew he was joking.

" _I know, I know, lazy to not build my own systems anymore, but it's recycling!"_

When _that_ was done, Ken scooped Wormmon up in his arms. "How do you feel about ice cream?"

"Ice cream?"

He really did love Wormmon's smile. The Digimon loved Ken so much, and when love was power, it really took a fool to underestimate them, didn't it?

Ken smiled back. "We're going to go surprise Osamu."

"Oh, that's good," Wormmon said. "He used to look so tired all the time, but now he's much less cranky."

Ken shook his head. "They weren't even giving him time to sleep…" When what they valued was the attention his brain got them, and how was he supposed to think when he couldn't sleep?

* * *

When he got to the top of the station, he waved. "Oh, hello, Mr. Ishida! But if you're here with Wizardmon, who's interviewing Osamu?"

"I'm out early," Osamu said, leaning out from behind the Digimon's ghost.

Ken and Wormmon both perked up. "Really!"

Osamu nodded. "Really. Mr. Ishida is a miracle worker."

"It's not really that much," he said, embarrassed. "If it was my son… They are doing what they think is best for you. They're right that your future is set as long as you keep this up, but if they push you too hard, then you won't be able to keep it up. All I did was give them some of the scoop from an expose we're going to do on Idol burnout and introduce them to the reporter who's doing the study."

"Doctors recommend nine hours of sleep at my age for optimal brain function," Osamu said longingly. "Nine hours."

"It gets a little hard to be a genius in a live interview when you're too tired to think. I just wish there was more I could do," Yamato's dad said, looking embarrassed. "Sorry about that."

"About trying to make me give wrong answers? It was a practice interview, and they're actually _listening_ ," Osamu said. "Thank you _so_ much, Mr. Ishida."

* * *

Huh. He hadn't even heard himself scream. Weren't your last moments supposed to be long enough to replay your entire life? He hadn't even had time to notice the sound forced out of him.

Or maybe this was the 'before death,' his mind trying to rewind, find a way out of this where he didn't die, but it was too late. The car had already hit him.

It wasn't until the scream stopped drowning everything else out that he could hear the squeal of the tires, Ken's voice shouting his name, still backwards like everything else.

Then the car was no longer touching him and he heard, "Osamu!"

He flinched, because if time had started moving forward again, the car was about to hit him again, he'd feel it _all over again_!

"Osamu, run! I can't hold this forever!" his brother begged him, and he looked up to see Ken holding out his Digivice, desperation on his face.

Osamu _ran_ for the curb.

The sound of cars resumed. His brother toppled over into his arms.

* * *

He awoke lying in bed, with a cold cloth on his head. He could hear someone wringing out water right next to him. "Wormmon?" he murmured, sounding too weak to speak.

"Are you alright, Ken?" Wormmon asked him.

Ken nodded carefully.

"Oh thank goodness, your brother said he'd call the hospital if you didn't wake up soon, and I couldn't be there to take care of you."

"My brother." Right. "Is Osamu okay?"

"He's fine. I'll go get him."

Ken heard Wormmon jump off the side of the bed and scurry away on his little legs. It made him smile.

Osamu came running. "You really saved me, Ken," he said first thing, so his little brother could breathe out a sigh of relief.

"If the bad guy… got to do it…" He closed his eyes. "Not fair otherwise… Can you tell Wallace…"

"Is that what you've been working on with Wallace?" Osamu asked, and Ken could hear that his brother was glaring down at him. "If a few seconds did this to you, there's no _way_ I'm letting you…" He sighed with relief when Ken shook his head.

"I could figure that out too. Even with the power in the Crest, there's no way to go all the way back to when Ryo went to fight him. The same thing works with dimensions, though, or that's what we're trying to do, and now I don't think I can power the experiments we were going to do so everyone else could get back to the Digital World and see their friends again. I hope they don't have to wait for the crest to glow again."

* * *

"…I don't think we're in Wyoming anymore, Terriermon," Wallace said, looking out at the night-covered sea, the lighthouse in the distance. He was perched on Cherubimon's shoulder, with Terriermon perched on _his_ shoulder as he floated in the air around the sand.

Koushiro had already set up his laptop and all the equipment in one of Cherubimon's hands. "I think I heard about something like this. I could get better readings if-"

"I'm not lowering the shield bubble," Cherubimon said flatly. "This place… it smells like the darkness that infected me."

"Right." Terriermon nodded.

"Well, if that's true we did get to another dimension, and not a random one but one connected to Cherubimon!" Ken said to cheer them up. "We can definitely get to the Digital World next time."

Terriermon shrugged. "We've never been to the Digital World. All I know about it is that it didn't have Wallace in it, but if _Wallace_ was stuck in another dimension…"

"You reunited me with Wallace," Cherubimon said. "We'll find Tentomon, never fear."

"Thank you," Koushiro said quietly, then, determinedly, "Prodigious! This dimension is also in contact with the Digital World, not just our world! I think we can get enough data to triangulate!"

* * *

"Did Gennai give you all of this?" Koushiro asked, still scrolling through the pages. "I haven't been able to get in contact with him."

"You can't tell anyone," Ken said, alarmed. "That way… that way Gennai is safe. I hope. He's safer if you give up trying to contact him. I'm only showing you something that came from him so you'd believe me."

The Child of Knowledge looked up at him, worried. "Gennai's in danger?"

"You don't remember," Ken said, clutching his partner tight. "No one remembers except me and Wormmon. Um… Do you guys remember fighting Apocalymon?" he asked.

"It would be hard to forget that… Under normal circumstances." Koushiro frowned at him. "I'm aware there are methods of inducing amnesia in the Digital World."

"Remember Diablomon?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember where Diablomon came from?"

"I assumed he was a virus, but a virus that could Digivolve… how did he get from the Digital World to the internet?" Koushiro frowned.

"Gods can mess with people's coding. Apocalymon wasn't the only god: Ryo fought one, and I helped him once. I wasn't allowed to help him the last time… The Sovereign wanted to kill another God, and they also wanted to see if the Chosen Children would commit heresy by planning to attack the Four Holy Beasts. So they lied to us, told us that one of them wasn't evil, so that everyone would lie to Ryo not knowing it was a lie, and… And Ryo didn't come back, and Gennai summoned me to give me my Crest and Wormmon and stay out of the Digital World," Ken told him. "The other evil god could do a lot of really scary things. The Four Holy Beasts… Gennai didn't know!" he insisted. "The Dark Masters sealed them away ages ago, he didn't know they were bad guys! He has to pretend he still worships him, because they can control him really easily. I don't know what's happened to him since then…"

"The Four Holy Beasts?"

"Gennai used your crests to unseal them, but instead of using that power to fix the Digital World, he figured out that they were going to seal the worlds away so no one could get in to help the Digimon, and make everyone forget when they made everyone fight each other and made Ryo watch Digimon die and…" His breath hitched. "Ryo's not dead!" He wiped at his eyes with his arm and looked back up to meet Koushiro's, insisting, "He's not dead!"

"Ryo is the person you went to the Digital World with...that's why it was so important to you to get back to the Digital World, and find Wallace's missing partner," Koushiro realized. "You think your friend is trapped in the Digital World with our partners?"

"I don't know where he ended up, or when, but in order to find out I have to get back to the Digital World. To help Gennai, I have to get to the Digital World too, but it's all pointless if as soon as Ryo comes back, the Four Holy Beasts kill him _themselves_ this time and just wipe everyone's memories again. I only escaped because they didn't know that Gennai gave me my crest, and if they find out..."

"This is serious." Koushiro frowned. "The Dark Masters defeated the Four Holy Beasts and we defeated _them_ , but we needed our crests to Digivolve. It may be possible to recreate our crests if we first access the dimension where we fought Apocalymon, and if that's the case..."

"I know you can beat them," Ken said, shaking his head. He had absolute faith they could. " _We_ beat a god, and there were only two of us. You guys are a lot stronger together than Ryo and I were. You have Omegamon, and Tailmon can digivolve into Holydramon, who is just as powerful as they are."

"You know Tailmon's ultimate form?" Koushiro asked, then winced as he realized why that might be true.

Ken nodded. "The Four Holy Beasts aren't as special as they want everyone to think. The problem is that they made it so that the Digital World will fall apart without them. But the Digital World existed before them, and it didn't just fall apart when the Dark Masters sealed them away, so there has to be some other way to preserve the Digital World that doesn't mean abandoning my friends."

* * *

"We really can't take the golden spires down," Koushiro said apologetically. "We've run tests, but we can only reduce the coverage beneath the worst case scenario levels we planned by under five percent. My estimate of how much of the energy they had available to them the Four Holy Beasts put into repairing the digital world instead of simply stabilizing it so it still needed them to continue to function was overly optimistic."

"But if Digimon can't digivolve, then what if Apocalymon returns?" Agumon asked, concerned for the Digimon in the area he protected.

"We picked the areas where the Digital World is strongest and left them outside the field effect, even if we'll have to rotate what areas are covered and uncovered once other areas are repaired, since those areas will degrade slightly." Wallace explained, showing them the patchwork of gold and red on his laptop screen. "What's worse: for a Digimon to have to travel in order to Digivolve, or for the entire Digital World to fall apart?" he asked them.

"Isn't there another way?" Sora asked him.

Ken looked hurt. "We're not doing this to cause trouble for everyone," he said, "but this is the only way we could come up with to keep repairing the Digital World without the Four Holy Beasts. Digivolution strains the Digital World, that's why the areas without Golden Spires will start falling apart if we don't change where Digimon go to Digivolve often enough. Once we come up with patches we'll apply them, but we _had_ to get rid of the Sovereign before they tampered with everyone's minds again, and we couldn't just let the Digital World fall apart!"

Well, they _could_ , but he'd thrown Ryo into the future of the Digital World, and if that dimension fell apart before his dear partner arrived? He could calculate the new emergence point, but the risk was unacceptable.

As was the risk that Ryo would ask _questions_ about what happened to bring about the end of the Digital World, even if he would need to be comforted after finding out about the loss of a world he'd come to care about… Hmm, no, finding himself years in the future, separated from all he'd known, with only a handful of people who left who still remembered him would be more than enough to render him vulnerable.


	2. Strike Midnight

A dark shaped loomed over him when he opened his eyes. It spoke.

"Ryo?" he heard.

Ryo recognized Ken's voice, Ken's rejoicing when all his hard work had paid off, when one of the Digimon that helped him was alright. He blinked, tried to focus tired eyes, and the haze that he'd mistaken for a dark crystal was replaced by someone who _looked_ like Ken. Except he looked a couple of years older than Ryo, instead of younger.

He grinned brightly and Ryo found arms wrapped around him. "I knew you weren't dead," the… they said with something close to Ken's voice. "Thank goodness it was only the future, what if he had you imprisoned in another dimension all this time..." He squeezed Ryo, then pulled back. Ryo let him pull him into a sitting position. When Ryo didn't respond, he frowned. "He didn't… tell me you're okay, Ryo."

"I'm… fine," he said, staring. "…the future?"

"It's 2004. After they sent you to die, the Four Holy Beasts tampered with everyone else's memories – Gennai said they'd forget about me, and I knew you weren't dead, I just knew it."

"The Four Holy Beasts?"

"They're sealed away again," he was reassured. "The Digital World's been peaceful since then. You won't have to fight anymore, Ryo."

Ryo rubbed at his eyes: they'd unfocused again. "I've been gone for that long?" he said almost absently. "My parents…" Months in the Digital World, a few days in the human world, then more months passed during the tournament, but this time it had been longer since they'd seen him than since he'd seen them?

"I showed them Wormmon and told them you weren't dead so they wouldn't have to think you were gone," he was promised. "Oh! The Four Holy Beasts locked away V-mon's egg, but we found him, and Hikari found V-mon's partner! I… I'm just so glad. I've missed you so much."

He sounded so happy, Ryo thought. Older. Years. Three and a half, maybe even four of them? Was that why he looked and sounded a little different? "MoonMillenniummon said we'd fly through time together," he said. Was that why he had that same feeling he got when Millenniummon was nearby?

The god's aura pulled at you, made him seem too… Something that couldn't, _shouldn't_ be fought. Tried to make Ryo feel that it was just ludicrous to even think about fighting this person. Was that how Millenniummon caught Digimon, pulled them towards him to kneel at his feet?

Ken said Millenniummon's aura gave him the urge to run away. It gave Ryo the urge to run away too, but only after he realized the effect it had on him, that something was messing with his _head_ to try to lure him into the monster's grasp. It was terrifying…

…but because he was one of the Chosen (in theory, even if some of the others had pointed out that when he didn't have a digivice, or even a partner…) and could fight it, unlike the Digimon the evil god controlled. He could wake up and realize how wrong it was, to be in awe or _something_ of a monster like that. Most Digimon didn't wake up unless someone purified them with a Digivice.

What was important was that if MoonMillenniummon was here, Ken wasn't safe. He managed to get to his feet, letting Ken help him up because Ken would feel bad if Ryo didn't let him help. His heart was pounding, something was screaming at him that _something was wrong_ , something was _very_ wrong, and panic? Panic was beginning to feel like an appropriate response.

Ken clasped Ryo's hand in his. "Are you alright? Did you get hurt?"

"Are you alright, Ryo?" Wormmon asked, down by Ryo's feet.

He shook his head. He might have been knocked around, but that wasn't important now. He didn't remove his hand from Ken's, but grasped it with his own in case he had to grab him and try to run.

For a moment he felt safe.

No, not safe. Something was very wrong and he had to keep Ken safe, even if Ken had his partner with him and Ryo didn't have V-mon, so he'd have to count on Ken to protect him.

So he was safe-something was _wrong_.

That feeling that here was absolute truth, absolute rightness, and he should forget all those petty mortal concerns like _innocent people_ and place himself in the hands of his god… "MoonMillenniummon."

"He hasn't been seen since you… Since the mountain blew up. The spires seal the Four Holy Beasts out of the Digital World," Ken told him. "They should keep out other gods, too. We can scan the other dimensions for him, but as long as you're near a spire in the Digital World you're safe, Ryo."

Safe.

"Should I call Jou?" Ken asked him, then frowned at himself. "I should have brought Jou, I should have brought V-mon too, he fought beside you longer than I did. He should have been here to see you again as soon as you got here."

Ryo had called Ken during the D-1 Tournament to hear his voice, as the hairs rose on the back of his neck and he became aware that something was _very wrong_ with the tournament. And those instincts were right, the whole thing was one big… lie. From people he'd thought would never lie to him, like Gennai, Taichi…

He turned back to look at his friend, and those were Ken's worried eyes, but even if he wanted to tell himself that Ken was just older that _feeling_. Ken was someone who needed to be protected, and while he could see a vulnerable heart in those eyes, the naked fear that Ryo might be hurt this feeling wasn't… Qinglongmon hadn't tried to draw him in. Qinglongmon had just been there, an immense weight holding the world in place, making destiny certain. Ryo knew Ken and Wormmon had the potential to be just as powerful as anyone else, but Ken wouldn't be interested in becoming a god.

That wasn't what his power was about.

Ken was softness surrounded by strength, because he gave his strength to others.

This, this was strength lying under softness. Solid metal camouflaged, not a flower in danger of being plucked. Even if what kind of person would take advantage of someone as nice as Ken?

"MoonMillenniummon."

Moonlight tricked the eye. MoonMillenniummon was a vengeful spirit, and spirits could possess people.

"You're… not Ken," he said, dreadful certainty warring with the wish for it not to be true. He wanted it to be wrong, but he should have wanted to protect Ken, not let Ken pull him up and tell him that everything was going to be alright.

He saw confusion he wished was honest. "You don't… recognize me?"

"Are you Ken?" Ryo asked him. When his former friend just stared at him he said, with a strange calmness. "Tell me that you're Ken."

Ryo saw raw fear for his friend instantly replaced by a soft light in those indigo eyes, both arrogant and rueful. "I could never lie to you, Ryo." Caught, and still he smiled.

Ryo couldn't move, frozen between the knowledge he needed to move, to get help, and the… horror of Millenniummon's grasp pulling him towards his _friend_. That poor little kid.

Stolen eyes stared into Ryo's, and that expression only softened further. "Once again, you destroy all my careful, patient work. Winning everyone's trust. Making them believe that the Child of _Kindness_ could work programming on my level. _Saving_ some of these vermin. Creating a peaceful world where you could let your guard down, especially in the arms of your dearest friend."

"And you're just taking off the mask?" It couldn't be that easy. This had to be meaningless, or Millenniummon wouldn't be just letting it happen. Stopping him was always an uphill battle even when he'd just come back to life a handful of days later or even immediately, in a stronger form. He _never_ went down without a fight.

"I've worn many masks. A perfectly obedient automaton that would never dream of stealing Apocalymon's power for myself. An innocent baby Digimon that remembered nothing of their previous lives, no different from the rest of the slimes bouncing around Primary Village. And yet you see through this mask to the core of me." He laughed fondly. "Only you."

"What have you done to Ken?"

"He's right in here, safe and sound," the violet-eyed boy smiled, pressing a hand to his heart. "He dreams every night, true dreams of a loving partner and being someone everyone can count on for help. I needed to study his emotions in order to mimic them. This mask had to be _flawless._ Everything had to be perfect… but it still wasn't enough to deceive you," he chuckled. "No, I should have known that _you_ would recognize me. I knew that you would be drawn to my side, as you always have before, but I thought that you would think I was another human. A dear friend, one who waited for your return so faithfully. And when we both grew a little older, you would find yourself longing for Ken as I longed for you, never knowing the true reason you were so drawn to me… But you knew in your core, my dear Ryo. I should have known that you would always recognize me, just as you will always come for me."

"Ken, I'll find a way to get him out of there," Ryo promised.

"You're… not… Ken?"

Wormmon's partner frowned at Ryo, ready to scold him for being unkind. "Your partner is here, Wormmon. It's his love for you, his happiness you've felt," he told the rookie, before looking at Ryo again. "Why would you be foolish enough to do this in front of him? I'm disappointed, Ryo."

"Like you care."

Tsk tsk. "A single tear from these eyes at your rejection, and he would have had you in a sticky net, kept you from hurting yourself until you came to your senses. Until I line item edited your memory. But I could never lie to you," Ken purred. "So very reckless of you, Ryo. What did you think would happen when you confronted me? Risking your chance to save your dear friend like that… Perhaps you _were_ still disoriented from your voyage through time? I did say that we would be together, I simply took the long way. Wormmon was a great comfort to me while I awaited you, so I do care."

He smiled fondly at the insect, and when Ryo snorted answered with a laugh. "I'm as surprised as you are. It's something akin to how humans care for favored stuffed animals, I believe. They play at having friends, and their joy at those imaginings becomes associated with their little toys. Playing dear partners with him dulled the edge of my loneliness even as it whetted my appetite for you, my dear Ryo," the not-Ken purred, voice savoring every syllable.

"Leave him alone!"

The _fake_ held out his hand to Ryo. "Why do you want him to wake up? He will dream a beautiful dream, of having a partner. Of being loved by you."

Ryo reached in his pocket, but the digivice that belonged to V-mon's partner was gone.

"I saved his brother's life," Millenniummon said. "I saved _your_ life. I gave him everything he wanted in life, fulfilled his every wish. Do you think it a kindness to return him to the real world, let him watch his As become Cs, leave him thinking that his friends only admired _me_ , never him, even if what they admired was the mask I crafted in his image, my mimic of his kindness?"

"And why did he never get the chance to learn that more people than just me would like him for who he is?" Ryo demanded. "You took his chances, you stole his life!"

"Sticky net!" Wormmon cried, enraged.

The attack _hit_ , and Wormmon's tackle even knocked the evil god's stolen body to the ground, leaving Ken's partner victorious on top of his chest. "I'm so sorry, Ken," he said, sobbing. "I'm so sorry…"

Millenniummon laughed, and it would have been kind if _kindness_ wasn't twisting the knife. "Blaming yourself is ridiculous, little rookie. It was impossible for you. The two of you never had a chance against me. Soft little lambs to the slaughter. It took a miracle for you to survive… So I knew that you and your partner had the favor of the power of Miracles."

"Don't… Don't look like Ken." So _kind_ , despite the words coming out of his mouth. When Wormmon was used to being looked down on, a weak little virus, a pathetic creature, but precious to Ken because he was Ken's _partner_.

"Oh, don't cry. Ken was always by your side, so how were you to know when even he didn't?" Millenniummon made a face with his stolen one. "This is why I never dropped that mask, I can't do comforting without it. You know how to tend to the inferior Digimon you allow to fight for you: do something about this mewling child, Ryo."

Ryo knelt down next to his enemy to comfort his friend. "You caught him, Wormmon. It's going to be okay. We'll find Gennai and there has to be _someone_ who can help." Unless Millenniummon had killed them all.

Millenniummon was smiling at him, looking approving and appreciative as Ryo gathered Wormmon to his chest and Ryo wanted to slug him. Except that would be punching _Ken_. "Do you know where he keeps his digivice?" Ryo asked the crying Digimon in his arms, squeezing him gently.

Not his. _Ken's_ digivice. Could he use it to free Ken?

"He has his terminal, I know how to use it to call Koushiro and Wallace," Wormmon said, sniffles decreasing as he got ahold of himself.

"There," Ryo said. "That's the Wormmon I know." They called him the weakest rookie in the Digital World, and he hadn't had a chance to reach Champion because other Digimon benefitted from Ken's power too much for Wormmon to need to act as a last line of defense, but like _hell_ he was letting anyone hurt his partner.

"All tied up…" Not that a rookie's power could hold the master of space-time for an instant longer than Millenniummon let it. A bit of web wasn't going to confine a bodiless Digimon. "A pity you're still so young. I found the most interesting things humans do with each other while I was studying the internet to create Diablomon."

Millenniummon… Millenniummon was planning to seduce him wearing Ken's body, a mask made from his friend? Not a hollowed-out puppet, but for some reason thinking that Ken would still have been in there just made it worse. Ryo might have _done things to Ken_ , let Millenniummon use him like that, and he had to press his hand over his mouth and fight to not throw up. "Get out of there," he said, not sure if he was demanding or pleading, as soon as he could get the words out without feeling like he'd be sick.

The evil god ignored him. He might have dropped the mask, but how was Ryo going to force him to surrender such a good hostage? "Do you remember the last time we saw each other? Only a moment ago for you, of course. I woke up after the last time you defeated me to find you already there. No opportunity to plan any proper welcome." Such a pity. "Sending you into the future so I would be able to accomplish my plans without you thwarting them seemed an obvious move. Four years seemed like nothing, until I had to spend them hungering for you."

* * *

 _Millenniummon is an utter bastard - see Mugendramon. The Digimon Emperor is his Lighter And Softer knockoff. Which is why it is so pleasing to see him go smack into a well-earned brick wall._

 _Like when Mugendramon thought he had the Digidestined cornered, too exhausted to digivolve into anything strong enough to matter, and then he wipes away/out those Numemon the way we might brush off a fly and oh look, now Hikari's ticked and it is glorious._


	3. Breached Defenses

_I am editing my Digimon works to use the original names and terminology. Pardon my dust._

 _Apparently a petard is a kind of bomb used to blow holes in a fortified building's defenses. 'Hoist with his own petard,' means getting blown into the air by a bomb you set._

 _That is_ marvelously _appropriate given Mugendramon and Millenniummon's penchant for explosions (Millenniummon sent Diablomon to nuke the Chosen Children from another dimension)._

* * *

"I let you manipulate me into betraying the Four Holy Beasts."

It Ryo a moment to recognize the Jedi as _Gennai_. Did Artificial Humans age backwards? It might have been that long in the Digital World.

"Oh no. They betrayed you. Qinglongmon had the key to your kind's back-up data. He could have restored the files of your brothers, but instead they wanted innocents. More children to use and finally discard. The Holy Beasts' desire to make everyone forget that just _anyone_ could become a god greater than them was so very _convenient_ for me. If they were fit custodians of the Digital World, I wouldn't have had to risk jogging anyone's memory. They were secure in their self-righteousness, so they would have continued to abuse their power and those who fought for them, and in time the Chosen Children, _Ryo_ would have had to go to war against them. Other Digimon would have had the chance to fight for him once again." Something clattered to the ground behind Ken's body, where Ryo had tied his hands. "And now _you_ have the key."

"I won't accept anything from the Digimon who brought Piemon down upon us!"

"Go ahead: revive them with your own skill, if you can. But you would never have known it was possible if not for me." That smile should have been fanged. "Make no mistake: this is no attempt to buy your forgiveness for their slaughter. I. Don't. Care." Millenniummon said as if to a child, and for _Ken_ to speak to Gennai like that… "I was fighting a war and your kind were on the wrong side: humans feel no guilt when they spray for termites. This, and the mask I set on your files so scans for heretical thoughts would come up clean, are to settle an entirely different account," Millenniummon said, turning away from Gennai to glance at Ryo.

Gennai looked at Ryo, but turned away, ashamed. Ryo wanted to tell him that he didn't have anything to apologize for, but seeing even Gennai unable to look at him? It drove home that none of the others but Wormmon were going to recognize him.

That no one was going to welcome him home, welcome him here, when he came and the person they thought was their friend vanished.

The others gathered: the original Eight, that American named Wallace from the tournament. Koushiro pulled Wallace into a hurried consultation along with Ken's brother and a girl who looked about Ken's age. He saw them sizing him up: right, he was a complete unknown to them, as far as they knew.

There wasn't anything Ryo could say, and no one he could say it to.

V-mon sat next to Wormmon, with a hand on his old friend's shoulder as V-mon's partner glared daggers at Millenniummon for upsetting his partner's friend. The youngest Chosen who showed up was around Ryo's age, and carried a bokken like he wanted to be breaking bones with it.

Millenniummon knew that he had a hostage, and they knew it. He ignored them whenever Ryo was in sight, looking at him like he was appreciating the view.

"Was Ken the reason you saved me?" Osamu asked.

"You were a valuable part of my cover. You were the only person who knew Ken better than Ryo, and living under the same roof, you would be the first to detect anything suspicious… And I could have erased your memories after interrogating you to find out where the flaw in my mask was. Keeping Ken's memories a day behind mine and observing his reactions was more than enough to fool all of you, but I didn't accomplish all that I have by relying on only a single stratagem."

"The spires block Digivolution so that even if we figured it out, all you had to do was retreat to the Digital World and we couldn't fight you!" Taichi threw his hands up. "I thought it was just that you didn't really care about helping Koushiro fix that because Wormmon couldn't digivolve and you didn't like other Digimon looking down on him!"

Bored contempt was an expression that didn't belong on Ken's face. "The spires block Digivolution so the dark Digimon pretending to be harmless innocents don't have an opportunity to regain their power and damage my props."

Props?

The Chosen Children. The stage he'd set for Ryo's arrival.

"I wouldn't be so cocky," Yamato said, backing up Taichi. "If you were Mugendramon…"

"Then you couldn't defeat me without a god intervening to save you… and I am the only god here to heed your prayers." This laugh was mocking. "I'm the only Ken you remember. Your father invited me to dinner just last week. Is this all your gratitude for the tech support is worth, Child of Friendship? Run off with your tail between your legs, the way you did when Ryo first faced me to save you pathetic little brats."

"I think he's mad because you're blocking his view of Ryo," Patamon said, hovering behind MIllenniummon's head to peer around it.

Taichi jerked, startled. Looked to where Tailmon was standing in front of Hikari. Eyes wide, he stared down at Ken.

"You?" Millenniummon wondered, a little disgusted.

"Oh, don't tell me," Taichi groaned. "I'm right, aren't I. _That's_ what this is about?" He groaned again. "And I thought one of Vamdemon's minions stalking my sister with binoculars was creepy!"

" _That's_ what all this was about?" Mimi demanded. "Possessing Ken, tricking everyone: you couldn't just _tell_ us? I forgave Tailmon, and _she_ hurt Togemon. _You could have just said_."

"It is not that simple."

"Yes it is."

"Only for you, Child of Purity."

"And you're supposed to be some kind of genius," Mimi accused him. "You know, I bet all the brains in there _are_ Ken's, because you're certainly not helping any. Since you were acting like him, then clearly _Ken_ understood 'not being a jerk to people you want to like you.'"

"They're partners?" Yamato asked, the penny dropping. "I mean, I knew Ken had a crush on Ryo…"

"He did?" Osamu asked.

"It was… kind of obvious from all the pining and insisting he had to come back someday?"

Taichi shook his head. "Wow, I can't believe _I_ was the first to figure out they were partners."

"You're really just shooting yourself in the foot," Mimi told Millenniummon, shaking her finger in front of his face. "I know how lonely Palmon was without me, but you didn't have to possess someone to borrow their partner, even if Wormmon _is_ absolutely adorable. You have to be _honest_ about your feelings."

"Yes, Child of Purity. My inability to lie to my partner is _such_ an advantage. It didn't just ruin years of work and earn me my partner's disgust. Get out of my face before your face becomes that of a centenarian."

"Oh for goodness' sake, it's like you _want_ Ryo to hate you."

"If he hates me, then he will come find me."

"And from what I hear, when he found you he'd kick your butt." Mimi gave him a skeptical look. "Hmm, no, I don't think you're a masochist."

Jou sputtered.

"No," she decided. "You're not a masochist, and if Ryo liked hurting people you'd have a black eye by now, since you're trying so hard to ask for one."

"I am not interested in relationship therapy from someone who has never experienced conflicting desires for more than a picosecond."

"Well, clearly you need it," Mimi pointed out. "You're obviously not getting anywhere on your own, and if you think ridiculous schemes are going to going to do anything but creep people out! You're still here, aren't you?" She nodded, and leaned forward to look him in stolen indigo eyes. "You need to get out of Ken," she told him. "Every second you're in there is hurting Ryo, and I know you can't _want_ to hurt your partner."

His eyes narrowed, watching her, but he said nothing.

"Oh," she realized. "While you're in Ken's body, Ryo is looking at you. He can't stop thinking about you, because he has to help his friend." She patted him on the shoulder. "You're his _partner._ I promise you that he'll never forget about you. You don't have to be his archnemesis for him to keep thinking about you. I know that if you called him to the Digital World, he'd come, just like I would for Palmon."

He looked down for a moment, and if Ryo didn't know better he might have taken it for avoidance instead of plotting.

Mimi nodded and patted him on the shoulder again: did she really think the evil god was in need of consoling? Right, Ryo realized, she really didn't remember what he was like, not as Millenniummon anyway. The other Chosen had said something about how Millenniummon had used different tactics when he was Mugendramon because his plans were different, so Ryo had no idea what Mimi remembered experiencing when she fought this guy.

"You _are_ like Tailmon. She searched, and Kari didn't come, but that was because Kari didn't _know_ , otherwise she absolutely would have. We both know that you wouldn't really have been happy if Ryo forgot about you and only loved you as long as you pretended to be someone else. That's not loving you, that's loving Ken. So," she said, raising a finger. "You can have one hug, if you promise to leave Ken's body after Ryo hugs you. Then you really should give everyone a couple of weeks to be sure that Ken is okay, and _then_ you can bother Ryo again. If you're so convinced that Ryo won't come to see you, then I _suppose_ you can take someone hostage, as long as they don't get hurt and don't end up missing exams or anything like that."

"Mimi, are you advocating kidnapping?"

"Well, he is a villain, of course he was going to think of it anyway if _I_ could," she informed Jou. "But I don't think Ryo will be very impressed or happy if you do that. Well? That was what you wanted out of today, wasn't it? For your partner to hug you? Even if he wasn't glad to see you, he _will_ be glad when you're out of Ken, so there's that too."

Rapid calculations flashed behind stolen eyes. Millenniummon smile was vicious. "How ridiculous, but this compulsion is ridiculous. You're correct, that _would_ make it _shut up_." That expression of barely restrained fury did not belong on Ken's face. There only a moment, and then he smiled again, assessing Mimi. "Long enough for me to act counter to the pull towards Ryo. And I'd already decided to kill you first because your power might have damaged my deception. How interesting that the Child of Purity, whose power allows her to dispel programs, allows the compulsion to control her like the rest of you puppets. If I could risk interacting with you, I should have asked _you_ for data, when you might have been able to detect your partner bond infringing on your free will..." He considered a moment, but only a moment, ignoring the others looking around to see if any of them know what he was talking about or how worried they should be. "Not a technical hug that only lasts an instant. He has to hold me until I am able to withdraw."

"Yes, but _only_ a hug. No funny business."

"I am not a fool."

She tapped her foot impatiently. "Well, you could have fooled me."

"For a human still in their child evolution to experience certain adult-state activities _harms_ them. If I was able to harm Ryo?"

"Yes, yes, you'd have blown us up already."

"Oh no. As Millenniummon I captured you for test subjects. Most of you would have been tested to destruction by now, certainly. _You_ might still be alive, depending on whether or not I'd managed to crack your ability to dispel mind control yet. Since it hasn't freed you from your partner bond, it's clearly deeply flawed..."

"Doesn't Ryo get a say in this?" Jou asked.

"Well, Miyako said she and the other brainiacs don't have any better ideas," Mimi said, gesturing at the other girl with oddly-colored hair, "and I assume we all want Millenniummon out of Ken sometime today." So unless someone else had any better ideas, this was the most efficient way to deal with this.

"What about not negotiating with terrorists?"

"He's not _threatening_ Ken, thank goodness. If he was stupid enough to threaten Ken when this entire big elaborate scheme of his hinged on Ryo caring about Ken, then there really would be no help for him. But I simply refuse to believe that someone who supposedly beat all of _us_ could possibly be that stupid."

Ryo drew in a breath. "I'll do it," he said, forcing the first words past his lips since Gennai got here.

Millenniummon's hands were still tied behind his back, which made it a little easier. Ryo didn't want him to be allowed to stand up, so he crouched down next to him.

It was easier than he'd thought: there wasn't any tough hide or cold aura of power to remind him of Millenniummon.

 _Safe_ he felt himself register when a still-thin chest pressed against his.

His _partner_.

So that was why.

He stiffened a bit when Ken's stolen face was pressed against his neck, but that mouth didn't open. Ryo felt him draw in a slow breath, shudder, and let it out. Another breath, and this time the body in his arms seemed to relax, deflate, and he wanted to believe that it really was because something was leaving it.

Then it stiffened. "Huh?" Ken said, and shook himself awake. "Ryo!" he exclaimed when he saw who was holding him, and Ryo found himself hugged again.

What Ken said… some of it was a little too similar to what Millenniummon had said with his lips, even with the shock, but it was awhile before Ken stopped focusing on Ryo to ask if he'd missed something, because he hadn't planned to ask anyone else to be there in case his calculations were wrong and he'd just gotten everyone's hopes up.

* * *

His arms wrapped around the partner sitting his lap, Wormmon's face pressed against his chest, Ken said, "They… seem like my memories." Ken was still wide-eyed and clearly having a hard time getting over the fact that he was having this conversation. "But four years… That's a lot of my life. Maybe it's just been so long that I've forgotten what I was like before, enough I just can't tell the difference between how _I_ would act and how he would act pretending to be me."

"He said that he was letting you have your own emotions about the memories so he could study them to imitate you," Ryo said. "He said that you were dreaming a beautiful dream, and that he kept your memories a day behind his."

"Well, that's a relief, that probably the things I think are my thoughts are mine… I _think_ I still remember how to do everything I learned how to do since I went to the Digital World for the first time, even if I guess I wasn't the one who learned those things…" He was silent for a moment, just stunned, before he pulled himself together to say. "Well, if _I_ can't tell the difference, Wormmon, then you really can't blame yourself for not knowing, okay?"

"Uh…" Daisuke said, and looked at Taichi and Yamato before deciding to say nothing.

"What is it, Daisuke?" Ken asked.

Cheeks red, Daisuke practically squeaked "Nothing!" and grabbed V-mon to run for it.

"What was that all about?" Taichi asked.

Yamato and Sora looked at him, then at each other. "Our fearless leader." Yamato said.

"I think he was acting like how Ken would be _if_ he liked Ryo," Sora took pity on Taichi to say. "But Ken isn't Ryo's partner."

"But Wormmon, what about _you_?" Ken asked his partner, and now he let himself look a little frightened instead of just incredulous. Or maybe it was just that Ken was Ken, and while realizing he'd been possessed by Millenniummon was shocking, realizing that _Wormmon had spent years in Millenniummon's hands_ was terrifying. "I, I _remember_ being, I mean I remember him being nice to you, but…"

The little bug shook his head. "He was nice to me. Was that all it took to trick me? I really am pathetic."

"Oh Wormmon… You wouldn't mistake V-mon for me, right? Or Daisuke, or Ryo, or Gennai, or Terriermon and Lopmon…"

It was a relief to hear that lots of people were nice to Wormmon these days. Then again, "He said he used Wormmon to practice, or pretend that he had a partner who loved him the way Wormmon loves you," Ryo told Ken. "Millenniummon didn't care that much about his tools when we fought him, but that was because there were more where that came from." If he wanted a particular tool, he'd just bring them back to life with full memories the way he had Vamdemon and those others the first time Ryo fought him.

"Right, he wouldn't let Wormmon get hurt, not when he was practicing for his partner." Ken let out a sigh of relief. "If he was being so…" He searched for a word and gave up. "If he took so many precautions and did such a good job making sure he could keep pretending to be me, then there's no way he wouldn't have been flawless with you, Wormmon, not when he was pretending you were _his partner_. That's a relief," Ken held Wormmon tighter. "I remember what he thought about _us_ , so it's hard to believe that when he was pretending to me he pretended to be that smart. I guess he just wanted to be a less embarrassing version of me. Thought his partner deserved someone better than someone who got taken over and didn't even _notice_."

Ryo closed his eyes, bowing his head and tightening his fists.

"Ryo, you can't blame yourself for this," Ken said.

 _It happened to you because of me_ , Ryo knew he should say, but words seemed more daunting right now than any battle ever had. Maybe it was because no matter what he said he couldn't win this, couldn't make it right.


	4. In the Face of the Enemy

_Ryo is BSOD'd hard during all of the fourth game, and indications are that it started not at the beginning of the fourth game but the big reveal that everyone had been lying to him in the third._

 _Being around Wormmon makes a huge difference in how functional Ken is after his own BSOD: it's made clear that he was hit hard, suicidal levels, and… well. There's a lot of stuff implied about the psychological effects of partner bonds in the Adventure continuity that_ really needs exploring _. Not just their effects on the Digimon (Tailmon and Millenniummon imply some drastic stuff), but their effects on the humans._

 _In Tamers continuity bonds are built, but Adventure partner bonds are_ hardwired _. If I manage to beat a certain random 22K into an actual fic, then I will be exploring the difference a little more. It is not normal to meet a member of an alien species and be willing to die for them in less than thirty minutes. The Adventure kids have a level of physical affection and familiarity with their partners on the level of immediate family members pretty darn instantly, and since they really wouldn't have_ decided _to act that way (bar Mimi, who is discussed as unusually willing to just walk up to her friends and hug them), that's a pretty strong subconscious drive at work._

 _Ryo was talking as much as he was in Ch. 2 because that subconscious awareness of safety was reducing the severity of the PTSD, the way being around Wormmon made Ken pull out of silence and guilt instead of the reminder and fear of hurting Wormmon forcing him deeper into it._

* * *

There was so much about what had changed in the almost four years to stun him and remind him again that he'd been cast out of his own time. The two weeks would have seemed like an eternity even if he didn't have the threat of MoonMillenniummon hanging over his head. For the first half of the fourteenth day, he watched his new D-Terminal. Then he started calling around to everyone else, just to be sure.

Tailmon was the one to say, "Maybe he wants you to find him."

To go speak to MoonMillenniummon of his own free will? Not that it really was, because he knew that if he _didn't_ act, then the evil god would try that hostage idea, or something worse. Daisuke was this close to dragging Ken into the woods or something without their Digivices or anything that could be used to track them so the evil god couldn't hurt his friend again, and Ryo would probably go crazy with worry if he couldn't check in to be sure that Ken hadn't been taken.

Koushiro had shown him the digi-port interface, so it wasn't that hard to get to the mountain MoonMillenniummon's floating continent had turned into when it crashed.

Picking his way up to the top of the cracked crystal that used to be the palace, he found a mass of darkness. Smaller then the MoonMillenniummon he'd fought twice, even the body inside that great dark crystal, but he knew his old enemy even before he uncoiled enough to raise one head to glance at him.

"Well?" he asked. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

That head stared at him silently. Ryo had no idea how to read those red eyes.

Was he sulking? Or just putting the onus on Ryo, making him be the one who had to do this even though he didn't care and was sick of having to do it? "Ken's still getting As," he said, deciding to start off with a topic MoonMillenniummon wouldn't care about to see if it made him speak up to change the subject. "He probably will up through _college_ , you read ahead a lot." Probably so he didn't have to waste time paying attention in class. "He says it's like that philosophical question about the man dreaming he was a butterfly, that it's weird not terrifying, but most of that is probably because he's too busy comforting Wormmon to worry about himself."

Both heads rose up now, the serpent regarding him through four red slits. Trained instinct was to check for exits, to notice that he hadn't brought any Digimon to defend him _what was he thinking_.

He didn't back down, even knowing that just because MoonMillenniummon's current form wasn't immense, that didn't mean he was any less powerful.

Right, he had better get _this_ stated for the record. "Tailmon told me that based on how obsessed she was with Hikari there is absolutely no way you're not spying on me 24/7, especially if you're staying an entire world away and would need to know if I was attacked right away," to get to the real world in time, time god or no time god. "And there is no way I can get you to knock it off, so just not in the bathroom. Digimon don't care," and he _hoped_ Millenniummon didn't care, "but humans do."

The _internet,_ wow.

He could try to make a joke of it, but the impulse was still to _run_ when the two-headed serpent slithered a little closer, testing to see how he'd react.

If Ryo laughed, there was too much risk that laughter would end up hysterical. He'd gone without seeing his parents for months at a time twice, but for him to be the one cast forward in time for _years_ , while almost everyone else forgot him?

They were made to forget the danger they were in. The evil god had snuck into the middle of the other Chosen Children. Millenniummon could have eliminated them, one by one, but that would have told Ryo that there was someone out there eliminating them. Like what he'd said about Osamu. All of them were camouflage for Ken: who would expect to find the ultimate evil in a group of heroes?

Who would expect the ultimate evil to be the partner of a Chosen Child? If Ryo even was a real Chosen, when he hadn't had a partner and still didn't have a digivice.

He sat down cross-legged. That put the dragon's heads above his own, but he was already aware that MoonMillenniummon was bigger and more powerful than he was.

The two-headed dragon moving another half-meter closer, watching him for his reaction, felt far too much like he was being stalked by something waiting to see if he was dumb enough to let it get within range to strike. "You're not going to say anything?" he asked, folding his arms.

"They are watching you," the Digimon said without opening either of his mouths.

"I know," Ryo said. Back-up ready to gate in or get him out of here was a no-brainer if he wasn't going to come in with an army.

One of those heads dipped: as long as no one _else_ was spying on his partner against his partner's will, apparently. "Ask your questions, then."

"I don't know if I have questions I can't figure out the answers to. Why you'd use a sweet kid like Ken like that: you tried to take over the Digital World," among other things. He'd brainwashed Digimon and tried to murder Chosen Children, so why would he draw the line at brainwashing a Chosen Child? "Why you didn't conquer both worlds while I was gone? Gennai explained about my Crest. If there's no plan that's foolproof when I'm on the other side, then you needed me not to fight you."

The serpent chuckled, and Ryo heard something laugh with delight, a cackling, chittering laugh. Something grey dashed in from the side, heading not for Ryo but for MoonMillenniummon, diving into his body.

A grey head with green eyes and two antennae poked out of the side of the serpent's body. "Play?" it asked with a wide, smiling mouth.

The neck on the right twisted around, and its head dipped down to bite the Keramon on the back of the neck, or the bundle of claw-tipped tentacles that served for a neck, torso and legs, and lift him out of the bodiless Digimon's insubstantial frame. That raised the question of how the head was solid enough to pick him up, but Ryo was used to Millenniummon cheating.

He released Keramon a few centimeters from the ground, leaving the rookie hovering there and looking up at him grinning. That head continued to regard the Keramon, while the other examined Ryo.

There was only one Keramon, unless MoonMillenniummon had made more. Either way, this was an artificial Digimon that digivolved into Diablomon. Diablomon had devoured a lot of the data in the world's computer systems and hacked into military weapons. It took Omegamon to stop him, even if like his creator he wasn't exactly dead. Was this a threat?

Keramon's green eyes narrowed: had he remembered Ryo from when they fought?

Ryo shifted, putting a hand on the ground in case he had to jump to his feet to dodge an attack.

"Run along, pet," MoonMillenniummon told the rookie, nudging him with the unhorned head to get the artificial Digimon's attention. "I've told you, your play is too rough for humans yet. Don't you have a treasure to guard?"

That head rotated towards Ryo, and an instant later Keramon darted into the crevice between three fallen chunks of crystal.

"A treasure?" Ryo asked. Something that Diablomon thought the Chosen Children would want to destroy?

MoonMillenniummon chuckled. "Well, in Keramon's eyes it is. Digimon are such pathetic creatures, but it seems I've grown used to having an adoring little pet. At least my own creation is a little more suitable, but he is still no substitute for you."

Ryo waited, but his nemesis said nothing more, simply watching him, pleased by Ryo's presence and his own secrets.

He groaned, knowing that, "You're not just going to tell me what your Plan B is."

"Of course not," MoonMillenniummon agreed. "Why arrange a single plan when instead I can arrange ideal circumstances?"

Why wasn't he gathering an army and - "You've already conquered the Digital World."

"Yes, I have all the control over the Digital World I wish," the serpent said, pleased that Ryo had seen it. "To quote Wallace: Bow before me, for I am Root. Any alteration I wish to make will be made, and neither god nor priest could override my authority. As before, the only one who can stop me is you."

"Eventually the Digital World won't need the spires anymore."

The darkness laughed. "They have replaced the Four Holy Beasts' Destiny Stones. The Digital World has always needed a god to regulate and preserve it. I suppose if they were truly desperate, the Chosen Children could drive enough Digimon to despair to recreate Apocalymon and see if _he_ would be willing to help them."

Even Ryo knew that wasn't going to happen and he hadn't had anything to do with Apocalymon. "You do still have a hostage," he said. "It's the entire Digital World."

"Only the Digital World? The network exists simultaneously in both the human and Digital Worlds, and the human world will only continue to grow more dependent upon the network. I have not taken control, but that doesn't mean I do not have it. That was my goal from the beginning, until Agumon and destiny summoned _you_ to oppose me. The worlds are mine, and everything in them I care to have for my own… except for you." He chuckled. "We stand upon a high mountain, and you are the Child of Miracles, the other half of the now-supreme God: shall I offer you all the kingdoms of the worlds? All these things I will give you."

In exchange for Ryo becoming his pet? "Big words for the king of a pile of rubble."

"I have surpassed the need for intimidating monuments to my power – although that did not stop the Four Holy Beasts from demanding elaborate temples, true. Exploring the crevices entertains my pet. Shall I program you a palace, a temple to the Child of Miracles and the God who presides over the past, present and future of all the Dimensions?"

The dusty ground Ryo sat on became a plush carpet, deep enough he felt himself sink into it almost a centimeter.

"Not happening," he said, refusing to show any fear. Honestly, Millenniummon was already ridiculously powerful enough that being able to edit the Digital World in realtime (or realtime from Ryo's perspective, but when Millenniummon could make time pass for himself at any rate he wanted the distinction was just academic) didn't make much difference. If he hadn't already been able to do that and just hadn't bothered when he had timegod powers.

"Yes: why should you bother to give your blessings to the unworthy? Why meddle in their affairs, come to their aid when they are enslaved and cry out for justice?" MoonMillenniummon's smirks were evil smirks. "I could have converted both worlds into utopias just as easily as wastelands, granted humans freedom from the ravages of time. I left Ken memories of the accounts and patents in his name, but that is only a _fraction_ of the wealth I possess. Imagine what could be done with it. You are a hero, Ryo. I know I can't tempt you with the power of darkness, the ability to rule and crush your enemies, but what of love and light? I know how hard you've worked to gain the power to bring justice and save the innocent."

"So join you, and you'll start throwing your weight around?" Nope, not an incentive.

"For your sake, and your sake alone, I have refrained from destroying the Chosen Children. For your sake, I have preserved the Digital World instead of reformatting it."

"You wouldn't have even thought about doing either of those things if you weren't evil. I did what Mimi said because it was the fastest way to get you to leave Ken alone, but you don't deserve a reward for undoing something _you should never have done in the first place_."

The tip of that dark tail twitched on the ground thoughtfully. "True. It seems I am still attempting to buy your affection, simply in different coin. You are my partner: you love was _promised_ to me in the instant of my creation. I have all that _I_ wanted, but not what I was programmed to crave."

"Well, I came to the Digital World, and saved it, and everyone else had partners like Agumon and Wormmon. You don't get to talk about being cheated when you're the one who captured everyone and brainwashed people. I had to fight you because of what you did! As long as you're evil, I'll have to stop you."

"So that is your judgment as well…"

Oh, crap. The atmosphere had changed, and Ryo did _not_ like it. It felt less like Millenniummon was stalking him, intending to pounce _now_ , but the sense of menace hadn't gone away, only gotten worse as the god pulled back his heads to consider whatever he was considering as he watched Ryo just as closely. Whatever it was, it was nothing good. "As well as what?"

"That we will simply have to battle each other eternally, because my programming will not let me see you as just one more of the vermin. I have had four years to study the bonds between partners. I cannot free my mind from this obsession even with all the techniques at my command, and it is no longer possible for us to have any relationship other than enemies. When I awoke to find you already there to kill me, I threw you into the future to give myself time without your captivating presence to devise a solution. I posed as someone else, someone it was still possible for you to care for, but even that…" Was not enough. "The entire Digital World is in my grasp. I could tighten my claws around it, and you would spend your eternal life struggling to pry them lose. You would come to face me again, and again, all your thoughts and all your days focused on me, as my core longs for you."

"Don't you dare blame me for this," Ryo said, clenching his fists. "The Four Holy Beasts knew, didn't they? That was why they lied to me like that, why they didn't think I'd care about the deaths of Digimon: because I had to be evil, I had to only be pretending I cared about anyone, if my Digimon partner was _you_."

"That hatred and anger: yes, the desire for revenge will drive you to seek me out again and again, no matter how many times you are defeated," Millenniummon said, pleased. "The _obsession_ that grips me: if I cannot have the love it desires, then I will force an equally passionate obsession upon you, so the flames of your rage will warm me.

"Yes," the serpent said, entranced. Ryo watched as his nemesis moved closer, looming over him, savoring the sight of him. "If you will not long for me, then long for my blood: let me taste your bloodlust, Ryo, until it consumes you as you have consumed me."

"No!" Ryo ordered, fingers digging into the carpet. He wanted to shake, but he wouldn't let this Digimon see that this was affecting him. The _wrongness_ of it. This, this was his partner who wanted Ryo to hate him? Was he right… _No_. What mattered was that Ryo wasn't letting him take over the Digital World and enslave everyone. Not now, not ever.

"No?" Really? Did he _really_ think that he could keep MoonMillenniummon from pressing his buttons? Did he think he could stay calm as thousands were slaughtered? The evil god was too amused to be angered by Ryo's refusal to give him what he wanted.

"No." No, he wouldn't let more and more Digimon suffer and die because of their battles. It was a good thing he'd had those two weeks, to speak to Tailmon and think of something. He hadn't liked it, but until now, maybe he just hadn't wanted to face how necessary it was. "You can't make me join you, but I'll let you buy my time. I'll see you for an hour, every day, as long as you don't hurt anyone. You know that if I have to fight you, I won't come until I've trained Digimon that have a chance to beat you, and freeing Digimon would be a _lot_ more important than… You want me to fight you? Well, if that's what you want, then I _won't_ want to do you any favors!"

That dark gaze examined him, before conceding that this was, "Acceptable. I will not require that you do anything other than be in my presence," the serpent told him, coiling his tail to settle in place instead of moving closer. "Your absence gnaws at me. Practicing with these pets and indulging in fantasies of you can only soothe, not sate. Perhaps if I am fortunate familiarity will even breed contempt, and I will not longer be forced to care about anything but your safety." Those heads ducked, a private smile. "Of course, I doubt my programming will allow that, when it would be _so_ unfortunate for you…"

With that parting threat, MoonMillenniummon curved and dove into the earth and crystal beneath them like a Seadramon. The bodiless god's passing left the ground undisturbed: Ryo wished he could say the same for himself.


	5. Dungeon Crawl

Even Koushiro and Gennai couldn't get a look inside the mountain, so when Ryo arrived the next day he brought some spelunking equipment. He couldn't fit through the hole Keramon had used, but there were other entrances. This wouldn't be the first evil underground complex he'd explored.

"Ah." Ryo heard MoonMillenniummon's voice from above him, and looked up to see the Digimon looking down from above the entrance he'd found. "You are still in the human equivalent of a Child evolution – of course exploring ruins in search of treasure would appeal to you. I will warn Keramon not to lash out if you surprise him in the dark."

He dove into the side of the mountain, and Ryo went in.

It was actually a couple minutes before MoonMillenniummon returned, and Ryo kept seeing red eyes in the darkness out of the corner of his eyes. Watching him, of course. He told the darkness that "There's enough room in here for you to come out." Where I can see you.

So far, he hadn't had to crawl: there were lots of fairly intact hallways.

Some of the equipment was even still lit up. "I thought there was a massive explosion," he said. "But that was according to Ken…" since none of the other kids or their partners remembered.

"There was, but an immortal god builds to last," MoonMillenniummon said, keeping pace with him on the slanted ground. "Programming structures with self-repair functions saves a great deal of effort."

Ryo swung the lantern forward. He didn't have to worry about bad air underground in the Digital World, not when there wasn't really oxygen here to begin with. "Like the Spires." That repaired cracks within minutes, and even if dispersed into data would pull themselves back together within hours.

"Of course. The Destiny Stones could only be replaced by the Four Holy Beasts, but the only reason to destroy the Destiny Stones would be to weaken the Holy Beasts. Those who rebelled would bring devastation upon the Digital World, devastation they would be blamed for. The amount of redundancy makes my spires a far more robust system: a Digimon breaking one in order to Digivolve won't cause their hometown to be swallowed up by an earthquake." Even though he didn't actually need to, MoonMillenniummon waited until Ryo had gone through the gap under the fallen pillar to follow him through it, instead of going through the pillar to keep pace with him. Pretending he was solid.

"The only way to get rid of them is to outhack you," Ryo said, as the two-headed dragon darted forward to slither along at his side again. Almost like a dog coming to heel.

"In real time, when I am connected to the Digital World." Ha, never.

No, nothing of a dog's eager loyalty or respect for their master. Ryo didn't want to be someone MoonMillenniummon shared his cleverness with, like they were on the same side.

He remembered going through palaces like this before, searching for the room where Millenniummon or one of his servants waited. Ryo guessed that here that was Keramon.

Diablomon, rookie or not.

Usually when Ryo went exploring like this, there were Child Digimon with him ready to digivolve. Agumon or V-mon sticking by his side, someone going ahead a short distance to watch out for ambushes, maybe someone who had just gotten tired out and de-digivolved back to baby or in-training tucked under Ryo's arm or in his bag on top of the supplies, head poking out.

Instead he was here with an Ultimate.

There wasn't any need to keep quiet: the most dangerous Digimon who could possibly be here already knew where he was. "This is familiar," he said.

Searching through bases to find the boss? "I would rather you didn't kill my pet."

"You were happy about it the first time." Ryo rolled his eyes, then returned them to the floor so he didn't trip over a piece of rubble.

"That was before I adopted him as a pet. Really, dear Ryo, you couldn't have waited to get me away from Wormmon, perhaps with Omegamon to back you up? I spent four years building him up enough to compensate for the fact I couldn't let him reach his Adult form without taking unacceptable risks, and now I'm certain he's so miserable he's refused to eat and gone right back to Baby."

"How did you think he was going to react when he found out?"

"He would not have found out. But if he had to find out I was within Ken, someone could have _lied_ to him. It's one thing for me to have been watching from within his partner the way one of my slaves possessed Oikawa-"

"Who's Oikawa?"

"Another to discover he hadn't spoken to his partner in years. Really, Ryo."

From the amusement in Millenniummon's voice, he knew exactly how hypocritical it was for him to tell anyone they'd been cruel, and Ryo wasn't in the mood for banter, even if he didn't know when he'd last talked this much to anyone but Ken. His parents had seen how worn out he was and let Koushiro explain instead of demanding words. "Oikawa?"

"I dealt with it: he remembers nothing. I couldn't let anyone find out that some Digimon were capable of possessing humans when they died instead of returning to Primary Village."

Yeah, _not_ saying thanks for that. "What does it feel like to you?" Ryo asked.

"Scattering a Digimon's data in the real world?"

Ryo shook his head, even though it was good to know at least one evil Digimon wouldn't be possessing anyone else. "The bond. I talked to the others about it. Tailmon said that until she pledged her loyalty to Hikari, it was a leash. She could leave Hikari's side after her partner accepted her, but until then it kept shortening, pulling at her. She was spying on Hikari through binoculars, and it was only a few days."

"Most of them don't realize it's there," MoonMillenniummon said, and of course he would have taken advantage of his deception to gather information from the other Chosen Children on what was happening to him. "The humans accepted their partners minutes after they first saw them, and the other Digimon were eagerly awaiting the bond. It is the air they breathe: always there, they must have it or they die, yet rarely noticed. Most of my data comes from Wallace's observations of his separation from Chocomon. An unexpected benefit of having Diablomon neutralize the Child of Destiny for me."

"What do I feel like to you?" Ryo repeated the question.

"You drain life from the world. Slowly, inexorably, everything began to dim. Food became tasteless, victories became empty, discoveries became merely interesting instead of fascinating. The satisfaction of eliminating enemies became a chore. And I did not realize, because I wasn't looking at the world around me to watch the color fade from it. All I could look at was you. Then you left, after my temporary defeat, and all I could care about, all I could think about, was the plan to draw you back to the Digital World. I _needed_ you to return to my side. When other tasks couldn't occupy my mind or energies, my strategies became unnecessarily elaborate. Unrelated research only had value in the context of _you._ I meant to plant my Dark Seed in you, but instead it found a host in Ken, and tasting his emotions, feeling his bond with Wormmon, I knew that such bonds had become the only thing that could matter to my core." This chuckle's mockery was directed at himself. "To find myself with something in common with a _Wormmon_. Being able to observe his responses to stimuli was of use to me, true."

"Dark Seed?"

"An anchor for my core, among other things. It made it easy for my spirit to take over Ken when I cast you forward in time. I didn't know of the Four Holy Beasts' schemes to destroy you until well after I woke up to find you there, but if you were going to show up to foil my plans _that_ fast from then on, I needed more time to work with. Four years seemed like such a small span of time until I spent those years craving you. You are a black hole, Ryo. Your pull gives order and purpose to the dance of the stars, but you will devour all in the end, and not a scrap of data will escape erasure."

Ryo paused in the middle of scratching a mark into stone. "That is _not_ a compliment."

"You have no appreciation for the beauty of destruction," Millenniummon knew, but didn't seem bothered by it. Not wanting to watch people get killed was simply a little quirk he would tolerate in his partner. "Do you sense in me the death of all things? Is that why you had to face me, even after I ensured that victory was impossible?"

"No." He said, and hesitated. "Gravity, I guess, but you felt like you _weren't_ going to devour me. Something made you feel like I didn't need to fight you, and since I knew better, _that_ was scary. Something was _wrong_." He sighed. "Something _was_ wrong. You weren't supposed to be my enemy."

"You are the one who chose to get in my way."

"You're the one who decided to conquer the Digital World." Ryo stopped, looking up at the ceiling almost in a daze.

Were they _bonding_? Even if he still hated MoonMillenniummon for what he'd done, he was letting the Digimon be by his side, he was giving him what he wanted, Ryo's attention and company, without a fight.

It was instinct. This was how they were supposed to be, except for the evil god being evil and seeing Ryo as some agent of death, chaos and being a killjoy.

"My guard is down," he knew. "That was what gave you away. I woke up in the Digital World after fighting you, without an army, and Ken was there, _also_ without an army. I wouldn't have felt safe just because he was there, I should have worried about him, wanted to protect him. I saw you the first time I opened my eyes and looked at him, but I would have thought that was a mirage, if it weren't for the fact it was hard to… Right now, I should be watching you out of the corner of my eyes, waiting for you to toss a black ring or dark seed or something at me. I'm not even watching my back the way I would if I was alone in the Digital World."

"You recognize me as your chosen protector."

"I thought it was because you were a god. Gods are supposed to protect people."

Was Millenniummon laughing at humans and their quaint mythologies? "I could."

Only if Ryo made it worth his while, Ryo thought, and his shoulders slumped at the reminder. He'd known too many Digimon to not see the gaping chasm between his partner and everyone else's, between Millenniummon and the ones who protected Ryo because it was the right thing to do, not just because he had helped rescue their partners.

He couldn't… what was there to say that could ever make this be the way it should be? So he kept walking.

He couldn't look for marks on the ground to track Keramon, not when he levitated, and even if MoonMillenniummon was pretending he cared about gravity, he wasn't solid so there wouldn't be marks in the dust to reveal where in these caves he'd gone, either. Ryo's best bet had been trying to find the working equipment, thinking Keramon and Millenniummon would have repaired only what they wanted to repair, but if the base was repairing itself that wasn't much help.

"I didn't bear a personal grudge against Agumon for killing my Mugendramon evolution and ruining my plans to gain Apocalymon's power," the dark serpent said finally. He still wasn't bothering to move the lips of either of his heads, not when they weren't solid enough to speak. One of those heads was Mugendramon's. "That was the Will of the Digital World's doing, not his victory. But, for being the one to greet you when you came to the Digital World, for _protecting_ you…

With the two of them talking, Keramon might hear them coming before they heard him, if he hadn't taken his treasure and vanished until Ryo left.

Ryo didn't respond, so MoonMillenniummon remained silent again for awhile, following Ryo. A real snake's scales would have reflected some of the light of the lamp, Ryo thought, but his partner was only darkness, except for the red eyes. While the serpent kept one pair of eyes focused on the ground, pretending he had to pick his way through the rubble like a mortal, one of his two heads was almost always watching Ryo.

"My early evolutions were dragons: I do find the search for treasure nostalgic, and yes, often I would have to eliminate its current owners. Traveling with someone by my side: I _wish_ that brought back memories. I learned to enjoy the company of a pet, but that was because I could see their happiness and imagine causing you that same joy."

Why was he saying that? Revealing loneliness and envy, that he craved Ryo's company, weaknesses? To get sympathy, obviously, but Ryo didn't know if it was possible to not have sympathy for your partner. Yamato and Takeru said they'd had major fights with theirs, but it clearly hadn't stuck. "Can you honestly say to me that you're not mind-controlling anyone, or enslaving them, or holding them prisoner, or letting one of your servants do anything like that to anyone?" Because if that was true, then Ryo wouldn't have to feel so bad about giving the evil god what he wanted. About wanting to be around someone who was doing things like that.

"..." The silence made Ryo's stomach drop, until he turned to look at MoonMillenniummon and saw his heads tilted thoughtfully. "Nothing comes to mind, but no, I cannot promise it. Not when owning shares in a company makes its employees some percentage my servants."

"A Digimon with a stock portfolio?" If it was any other Digimon, Ryo could have laughed at the thought.

"I studied the Network dimension and its manifestation as the 'Internet' in the Human World, which came in useful crafting Diablomon and giving him his orders. Money is power in the human world, and I did say that I possessed wealth and power in that world, tools that could be yours."

"You're a corporate overlord now?" Spires all over the Digital World, and with the false front turned off Koushiro didn't know half of what they did with the data they broadcasted.

"Not an active one, no. I haven't cared to take control, no more than I've cared to take control over the Digital World. No excitement, no challenge, no feeling of accomplishment… not without you. I would have been very bored once the Four Holy Beasts were dealt with if I wasn't able to continue to practice having a partner bond and caring relationships with humans. Planning and preparing for your arrival. Now my toys won't play with me anymore." A false lament – or at least MoonMillenniummon thought it was.

"Except for Diablomon. Mimi said she still wants to give you multiple pieces of her mind."

"Purity? I was not enough of a fool to play around with a power that strips away enchantments and illusions. Making friends with her friends was enough to make her start hugging me _without_ encouraging her. Thank goodness she moved to America." One of his heads cocked to the side. "Does human reproduction count as imprisonment?"

Ryo stumbled. "…Wha?!"

"He's effectively in a digiegg. It's far too early for him to hatch, he's not viable without life support yet. However, I did program language already, and he keeps asking to be allowed outside the tube. For understandable reasons, but he's not even an in-training yet and can't understand that no, he truly must not leave."

"…What are you _doing?"_

"This way," Millenniummon said, gesturing with his tail towards a passage at a forty-degree angle from the way they'd come.

* * *

 _Because even when he has no more damns to give about killing rebels (they'll all be destroyed when the timeline shatters anyway), mad science is still happening._

 _Ryo is the type to do his screaming internally._


	6. Applied Sciences

Not long after regaining access to the Digital World and setting up the golden spire system, Millenniummon knew that he had to deal with the matter of V-mon.

Even after going to all this trouble to use Wormmon's connection to V-mon to find this sealed temple, these _emotions_ his core forced upon him didn't want to unseal the dragon child. Not when V-mon had fought besides Ryo twice. Oh, Agumon had given Ryo some help at the beginning of the tournament, according to Ken's memories, since Taichi didn't need to train the way Ryo did and Ryo's fights weren't at the same time as Taichi's, but if Ryo had gotten far enough to fight Taichi? Agumon wasn't going to fight for Ryo against his own partner, and they both knew it.

Ryo had asked Wormmon to stay behind after the first few fights, because Ryo didn't want to waste Wormmon's precious chance to speak with his partner through the device Gennai built.

V-mon was the one who had fought for Ryo even against the Legendary Child of Courage. The one who had insisted on going with him to the floating mountain, even knowing that MoonMillenniummon would soon awaken there.

So V-mon was killed in the blast that convinced the Four Holy Beasts that god and partner alike were dead and gone.

Death should have stripped V-mon's memories of both Ryo and Millenniummon from him, but with the worlds connected Digimon were remembering more when they revived. Millenniummon had never lost _any_ of his memories to death, and now he knew that was Ryo's doing. Because his human counterpart possessed exceptional strength. V-mon was the partner of one of the Chosen Children, so who knew what knowledge he might retain, unless the Four Holy Beasts or someone else dealt with those memories?

Ryo would want to be sure that V-mon was alright as soon as he returned, so best to deal with the risk a fellow dragon's (and ancient digimon's) senses might be able to detect his energies within the Child of Kindness now.

"I think this is it, Wormmon," Ken said, stepping towards the egg on the altar. "I wonder why he didn't wake up at Primary Village?"

Wormmon looked worried. "Do you think they did something to V-mon?"

"I don't know, but I should find out before I try to move the egg. It might be trapped," he said, sitting down and getting out his laptop.

Well now, wasn't _this_ interesting.

It was strangely practical that the Child of Kindness was bonded to a useless Wormmon: his crest wouldn't let him empower his partner any significant amount, so there was no point in giving him a partner with powerful digivolutions he would never be able to attain. Yet Wormmon had a secondary bond to V-mon, one that would let them merge with ease, and Ken _could_ give power to V-mon. So Wormmon himself might be useless to Ken (for Millenniummon, he was useful practice) but his merged form might actually be formidable. It would depend on the abilities of V-mon's partner. It was almost a pity that a DNA digivolution would link Ken's mind to that of V-mon's partner, and he couldn't have them noticing a foreign presence in the link.

Well, he consoled himself, if he needed access to an enforcer he had the other Chosen. That would avoid getting his mask's hands dirty.

Wormmon climbed into his lap. "Do you think we can wake him up?"

"I was right: there is something keeping him asleep. I could try to break it, but it's keyed to his partner," he told Wormmon. He smiled down at the bug. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"V-mon will so happy if his partner is there when he wakes up!" Wormmon rejoiced, clasping his little forelegs together.

The worship of Digimon was boring, but what he felt through the link? The thought of having his nemesis smiling up at him like this _made_ him smile down at Wormmon.

"Right. If we bring the digi-egg to the real world, then even if we can't find V-mon's partner, he'll find V-mon." Partners were drawn together. Even after he knew that Ryo could give Digimon the power to ignore Millenniummon's invulnerability, he still could not run from the human. He'd done his best to throw barriers in Ryo's path, but it was not only Ryo's skill that made them surmountable. Millenniummon's own drive to be near his partner had resulted in self-sabotage. If the only way to regain his former competence was to give his core what it wanted, then so be it. "Try lifting his egg, Wormmon."

"Me?"

"You're connected to V-mon, remember? You're not his partner, but I bet you can still pick up his egg."

Even the mask had to suppress a laugh as Wormmon carefully managed to carry the egg. Not a mocking one, but a kind one, seeing Wormmon take his chance to help the friend he'd missed for two years so seriously. 'Ken' couldn't carry the egg, but he could carry Wormmon in his backpack.

"That's Daisuke's egg!" Hikari said as soon as Wormmon pushed it out of Ken's backpack onto the floor of Taichi's room.

And _that_ was why Millenniummon had constructed shields that could hold up against even Zhuqaiomon's examination before contacting the other Chosen Children. None of them had the first idea of how to control their powers, and he had no intention of being seen by the Child of Light and exorcised by the Child of Purity. Posing as their friend was dangerous, but studying their powers was his best chance to find some way of sealing Ryo's.

"Really?" Ken said happily, sitting on the floor. "Your friend from Taichi's soccer club?"

Hikari nodded. "Daisuke is…" she paused, and he saw darkness behind her eyes. Darkness he'd put there by swatting those Numemon. Of course he didn't regret getting those disgusting creatures off him, but her emotions had opened her channel of power and let the Will of the Digital World empower Koromon. _That_ was inconvenient. "He's nice, but he doesn't think. It's a good thing the fighting is over. He'd want to protect everyone, and…"

"He's a good kid," Taichi agreed. "Some of the new Chosen Children I'm not so happy about: Mimi's and Koushiro's friends are fine, but a lot of the kids you said were at the tournament? Who picked those jerks? Daisuke has a lot of heart."

"That's a relief," Wormmon said. "V-mon was my friend: he's strong and brave and protected me and Ken even when he couldn't digivolve. He deserves a partner as nice as Ken." But not Wormmon's Ken, judging from the way Wormmon scuttled back to Ken's lap.

"Let me give him a call," Taichi said, leaving the room.

Wormmon's happiness to see his newly-hatched friend was dimmed by V-mon not remembering him. "But I know we're going to be best friends!" V-mon reassured him, which restored the little bug's spirits.

That happiness touched Ken's heart, and with it the brain Millenniummon inhabited.

Wormmon wasn't his Ryo, but feeling even the echo of his host's bond?

He _must_ have this. He _must_.

Failure was no longer an option, not when it would leave him a mental cripple.

Fate had brought his partner to the Digital World so that he would become obsessed with Ryo and be unable to fight him effectively. Not when he was programmed to protect Ryo. It had _worked_ : he'd let Ryo kill him three times, and even allowed Ken to live, so distracted by Ryo's presence and the growing realization that he was not acting like himself. That something was _wrong_ with his mind.

He watched Tailmon congratulating V-mon on finally finding his partner, even if V-mon didn't remember going without his partner before, and evaluated her. If he was any judge, she'd regained most of the acumen she'd possessed as Vamdemon's right hand. The bond had only forced her to be incompetent when acting competently would have consisted of slitting Hikari's throat before the human could make her betray her master.

If he wanted to be himself again, if he wanted to rule the worlds, he needed Ryo by his side. The way Tailmon sat at Hikari's, the former assassin drawing on all her skills to ensure the safety of the Child of Light.

When Ryo was among the rebels, Millenniummon's own mind refused to strip him of allies and protectors. Once Ryo was his? Why, any rebels would be _threats_ to Ryo: attempting to bring down their god, they might go after his partner.

As galling as he found the thought of being some pampered pet like the Wormmon, every scrap of data he could find confirmed that once Ryo had been summoned to the Digital World? Once he'd been brought somewhere Millenniummon could sense him, and he had possessed a God's ability to survey his domain?

It was _too late_. He couldn't deactivate the programming. All he could do was satisfy it, so it would stop forcing him to crave something he'd done without for thousands of years. So it would stop turning his mind against itself. So he could stop _obsessing_ over someone when he had a conquest to arrange.

A charade of caring for the Wormmon to keep up appearances provided test data, not merely on the Wormmon but the human partner, observing Ken's reactions to those memories. Now Daisuke and V-mon would provide another sample to observe.

It was one thing to try to defeat Ryo, another to pit himself against both the human meant for him and his own self.

He couldn't capture Ryo and break him. He couldn't mind control him: that plan had also been made to fail. He couldn't expect Ryo to abandon valuable allies like the Chosen Children: that would be stupid when humans were weak on their own and Ryo knew what it took to fight Ultimate Digimon.

To satisfy his programming, he needed Ryo safe and at his side. To keep Ryo from fighting him, he needed Ryo ignorant. Needed him _happy_ with things as they were.

'Friends' let him practice making humans happy. Wormmon let him practice making a partner happy.

Four years to prepare simultaneously felt like an empty eternity and not enough time at all.

* * *

After going up and around closer to the angle of Ryo's original path, they emerged into a lab filled with tubes. Keramon was clinging to the side of one of them, all his tentacles wrapped around it. His head rotated when they came in, and he jumped down to pose in front of the tube, large arms spread to make himself appear more menacing as he glared at Ryo.

"Down, Keramon," MoonMillenniummon said to his creation.

Ryo was staring at what was in that tube.

The hair, the eyes: that was _Ken_. Not the Ken of 2004, but the little kid who needed someone to fix his brother's computer before he noticed there was something weird on the screen.

Except Ken would have smiled to see _him_ , not MoonMillenniummon, before yawning and closing his eyes again. And Ken didn't have patches of metal on his stomach, or feet that were bare metal bones.

"This is Keramon's partner. An artificial human for an artificial Digimon," the Digimon explained as Ryo stared. "Reproducing Keramon's exact pattern required far more precise control than the Order's type of artificial human offered me, so I devised a different method. Keramon is not good at restraining his strength, so I build this prototype sturdier. He linked to Keramon instead of generating his own partner as soon as he became self aware: if he malfunctions and dies, Keramon will lose the will to live. Therefore, I will not allow him out of the tube until he is complete, no matter how he begs to hold his partner."

"Did you have to use Ken?" Ryo's voice was quiet even in his own ears. For a moment he wondered if Millenniummon heard it over the humming equipment.

"It would have been out of character to beg or steal a blood sample from another Chosen Child, and I needed to build a human base with a powerful ability to link to Digimon to compensate for Keramon not being built with linking to humans in mind."

Right now, the… cyborg clone? But this was the Digital World, so was he an artificial intelligence? Either way, there were tubes and cords linking him to the tube he was in. "What am I going to tell Ken?" Did this make Osamu an uncle, too?

"You can tell them that I got Daisuke's blood one of those times he ignored his safety going for a goal and I had to patch him up, and once I finish this one and make BlackWarGreymon's partner he had best propose before I force the issue. Loving parents are clearly beneficial to humans, so unless he wants the sentience of the spire system to be connected to a partner as unstable as Takeru…"

This time Ryo didn't even manage the 'Wha?' part of what before becoming speechless.

"Wormmon and V-mon are natural DNA Digivolution partners, not that I could risk allowing them to digivolve together, when I would be pulled into the link between Ken and Daisuke… Roleplaying my host's crush _was_ valuable practice," MoonMillenniummon said smugly, "and Daisuke is a sweet little thing, if I could do with a bit less excitability. I suppose he can't help being passionate, given his Crest. Well, not unless he wished to be _weak_."

"You pretended to like someone else when you were trying to, to get your hands on me?" Planning to break V-mon's partner's heart was one more for the incredibly long list of his partner's evil deeds, Ryo guessed.

"I needed to be able to imitate Ken in love, and the best way to do that was to observe him in love. Daisuke is… If Taichi and Mimi were allowed to breed and the offspring inherited a double dose of complete obliviousness, but he's an affectionate pet. I was planning to keep him for you, and so Ken would remain a besotted template for me to copy."

Ryo just stared.

"I just talked the Chosen Children into helping me overthrow the Four Holy Beasts and take control of the Digital World," MoonMillenniummon told him. "Before them, it was Apocalymon and the other Dark Masters. If it weren't for my inability to lie to you, I would have had no difficulty talking you into a threesome. An Adult evolution is still nothing compared to an Ultimate with my power and experience. Of course, now I've hurt Ken, so Daisuke will be trying to bite my face off. If anyone lets him find out the coordinates of this mountain, he'll be here in minutes. Fortunate that being blown up wiped V-mon's memory." He sounded _approving,_ or was Ryo hearing things?

"Like a guard dog?" Even if it was nice to hear that yeah, Ken really did have good friends. "Are all of them really just things to you?"

"Yes. Obviously. A thing is a term encompassing all objects of discussion. People are objects that can be discussed, therefore people are things. Ken, my previous pet Digimon, Ken's puppy, even you and I. The only difference between myself and Ken is that I am a smarter, more capable thing, as are you. Ken and Wormmon, Daisuke and V-mon, you and I are all the evidence one needs that partners are made for each other." MoonMillenniummon ceased pretending to be affected by gravity and solid matter to stick one of his heads into a cabinet and come out with a chocolate bar in that mouth. Floating over to the tube, he stuck that head through the wall.

"Chocolate!" Keramon cried, and the boy opened his eyes and let out a happy laugh to see the candy.

The evil god let him snatch it before asking. "First you say…"

"Can I please have some chocolate-with-big-eyes!"

"And then?"

"Thankyou, Moony-or-whoever-gave-me-something-so-they'll-do-it-again!"

" _Now_ you may open it. That's the trouble with language downloads." MoonMillenniummon sighed as the mini-Ken ripped open the chocolate, floating back over Ryo's head. "I'll have to wait until he's further into in-training stage before he'll understand the concept of _stage directions_."

Was this feeling what made people hit their head against the wall?

"Wait until I clone the Child of Desire for the artificial Digimon I am crafting to embody the spire system," the dark serpent gloated. "I'll have to upgrade the intelligence, but that one will be just as lethal as BlackWarGreymon with a little training."

"What's his name?"

"Kera, currently." He waved his tail at Keramon, who had returned to plaster himself to the front of the tube.

"So he'd be Diablo if Keramon digivolved?"

"Of course. Personal names are a human concept. All of the artificial humans were 'Gennai' after an extinct relative of Lampmon, but the surviving Gennai was contaminated enough by contact with the Chosen Children to decide the new ones should have human-style names. If it matters to you, 'Treasure' may count as a nickname."

When Ryo didn't respond, a red-eyed head eventually lowered to look at him upside-down.

"…Ryo?" he asked after a few moments, that dark voice almost soft with concern.

"I'm in the future. No one I can talk to about the Digital World remembers me except my parents, Gennai and Ken, and what can I even say to Ken? When you did that to him because of me? And now I have to tell him about this," Ryo said, sounding close enough to despairing the part of him that noticed things like that was getting worried, as though there wasn't enough going wrong in his head.

"…It is too much?" the evil Digimon asked.

"Why… why do you do things like this, possessing people and killing them and cloning them without asking and blasting me to the future and… I wanted a partner like everyone else's! I thought if I had a partner, I…"

"That you'd be safe from me?"

Ryo shook his head. "Agumon and V-mon fought you to protect me: my partner would have to, so I'd have to be worried about them, but… Why can't you be… You really are a monster," he said, and hung his head.

Darkness coiled around him, suddenly solid. Ryo should have felt scared, trapped, but he was just too tired to care enough to overrule the part of him that felt comforted by the evil god's presence. "I have been a monster since I wandered the deserts of the Digital World, searching. For all my mastery of the Digital World's secrets, I know very little of anything else. I hoped to learn how to take proper care of you from the Child of Kindness, but I can no longer wear that mask. Or any mask. Not with you. If you were not my partner I could keep you as innocent and happy as I kept Wormmon while I dreamed of the day I would have _you_ curled up by my side with such contentment. But you _are_ my partner, and so I cannot lie to you and manipulate you."

"So you don't know what to do any more than I do."

"I can see countless ways this can end in misery. Once it does? To gain the power to reorder time, to reorder _your_ time when you are the balance to my powers, I would have to destroy all the worlds and times that currently exist. If I did that, then once you compelled the truth from me and discovered what I had done? Surely no matter how I shaped your history you would still despise me. Yet I am driven to do whatever I must to have you by my side. If all other hopes are exhausted, then I _must_ slay the ENIAC and shatter time."

Too, too much and if it weren't for those coils he might have fallen. It wasn't like the fate of the world hadn't rested on his shoulders before, but all those times he'd done nothing but _delay_ Millenniummon. After the first time, he'd started coming back after a few days! First he and Ken beat Millenniummon only for him to return as MoonMillenniummon, then the Four Holy Beasts pulled him into the Digital World because MoonMillenniummon was about to revive again and now here he was years in the future and the monster who captured and enslaved everyone had as good as _won_.

And used Ken to do it, when Ryo wasn't here to save him. When this was his job, his responsibility.

How was he supposed to stop his partner now?

"Why must I be compelled to tell you the truth, even when it harms you instead of protecting you…" He felt one of those muzzles, cool and scaled, nudge against his cheek."Can this programming that compels me not even be internally consistent? Or is it that it harnesses my own mind, from _within_ my own mind, and knows every method I could use to evade it as soon as I invent them? Yet why would it ruin my ability to attain what it forces me to desire? Is there any victory to be found when I fight not only my beloved but _myself_? When I possessed Ken, I realized that I had stumbled into a way to avoid fighting you, and even that is as sabotaged as my other plans…"

Ryo scrunched his eyes shut tighter, and the darkness held him.

 _Safe_ , said whatever part of him made him a Chosen Child. _My partner's here. I'm not alone. We can do this._

He _wished_ that part of him was right, but no matter how much he wanted it to be true, it was just impossible.

The coils remained solid yet weightless, holding him up instead of dragging him down. A head tucked itself against the side of his own, and he felt Millenniummon's body warm, vengeful spirit or not. He let himself sag backwards against that support, knowing his partner wouldn't let go.

That might or might not be the problem.

He wasn't sure how much time passed before his feet left the ground. He didn't open his eyes, even when he felt the transfer between the worlds.

"Hey, you're that jerk, aren't you! What are _you_ doing to him?" a barely-familiar voice demanded.

"Let go of Ryo!" Wormmon.

" _Comfort_ him," MoonMillenniummon ordered, voice a hiss, as he gently lowered Ryo onto a bed, coils passing through it so there was no need to drop him for even a centimeter.

The evil god had brought him to his _friends?_

"Is he alright?" Ken asked.

"Simply overwhelmed. Once again, I gave him too many truths. My partner is still a Child, even if in the past he has evolved under pressure into something strong enough to stand against even me. He cannot be expected to handle so much now when he has not even reached his adult stage," MoonMillenniummon said, defensive not of himself but of Ryo. "He needs softness I cannot provide." That muzzle pressed against his cheek in a farewell, and the coils shifted as they released him.

Ryo opened his mouth and managed to say, "Stay."

"I do not think that is wise."

"It's not, but you're my partner," Ryo said. "This is…" Your job. The way you're mine. Please, please try? "Stay?"

An amused huff of breath in his ear. "Do you wish to give V-mon and his partner the chance to bite my faces off?"

Ryo laughed, and it almost startled him, but, "That sounds fun." Without opening his eyes, he raised a hand to pull the head down against his shoulder. "Stay."

"…You ask of me what I wish most of all, my beloved," and this time, this time he sounded kind.

* * *

 _This is why the Ryo games are so darn fascinating to me as an SF fan and someone interested in applied psychology for practical reasons. I like scientist, or perhaps even more engineer characters - like Tony Stark applies what he knows to actually doing things he wants to do - whether they be mad scientists, nice/parental scientists, the_ long story _that is Frankenstein from_ Noblesse, _etc._ _If you're in a bad situation, you try to do something about it... if you can. After Millenniummon realizes that Ryo is his partner, he makes various attempts to get out of the fact that he is now screwed. They don't help, and judging from the Tamers drama CD what's left of him in Cyberdramon is suicidal._

 _Tailmon wants to stop serving Vamdemon, so her story has a happy ending, but imagine if she actually liked Vamdemon, or just had a life of her own that wasn't compatible with being Hikari's partner?_


	7. If You Could Not

"You want him to stay here?" V-mon's partner asked, sounding almost betrayed. "In _Ken's_ room?" Wasn't Ryo Ken's friend? Why would he put Ken in danger like that?"

"It's alright, Daisuke," Ken said, trying to soothe the other Chosen Child.

"I guess it's better than having him somewhere else, doing who knows what." Daisuke grumbled, but if Ken thought it was alright and didn't want him to be angry?

"An adoring partner to protect and an adoring human protector," Millenniummon said, pleased. "I thought you were utterly pathetic trash, and that I would discard your shell once I had found a more suitable host body. I should never have doubted my partner's good taste." Another cool kiss to Ryo's cheek. "The power – or aspect of your human core – manifested by your crest seduces useful allies to your service, because they wish to preserve the resource you represent. Before the end of my first week in your body, I had the last artificial human and the Child of Courage's Agumon, along with your DNA Digivolution partner's V-mon, looking at each other, making a pact between them to do whatever they could to assist me." He laughed. "Between my partner's bond to me and the power of your human core within my stolen body, I knew Ryo would be irresistibly drawn to me."

"Too strong," Ryo said, tapping the head he still held against his shoulder.

"It seems I _should_ have moved to the Black Orb Piemon placed within the last artificial human. Now that the data drain damage has been undone, the artificial human template looks something like my Ryo, therefore it must be attractive enough to serve…" The head Ryo wasn't holding down nudged his cheek again. "Have no fear for the Gennai, I know that you'll be on guard against me taking another host. You are feeling better?"

Ryo was silent for a few seconds, taking stock. "I guess I am," he said, opening his eyes, feeling almost disappointed.

"That's great!" Chibimon said, hopping up onto Ryo's stomach, only tall enough to poke his head up over the coil wrapped around Ryo's chest.

"Hey," Ryo said, smiling at him. "The two of us can handle anything, remember?" then he realized he'd referenced something V-mon wouldn't remember, in front of V-mon's real partner. "Sorry," he said.

"What have _you_ got to be sorry about?" Chibimon asked him. "Piccolomon told me that we did all this awesome training, and when we found Daisuke I was going to be the _best partner ever_. Then they made me forget _everything,_ all the stuff I learned!" The little dragon was so mad!

"Daisuke, I am _so_ jealous of your partner," Ryo said, turning over on his side to see Ken sitting on his computer chair and Daisuke standing. "You got _V-mon_."

Yeah, Ken was still Ken, he decided. Millenniummon hadn't taken him over again while delivering Ryo there for some 'comfort.' Or maybe he would have if Ryo had let him leave instead of asking him to stay. Millenniummon was smart, and if he could stop Ryo from feeling his… partner… bond…

No, if he could do that he'd have done it for himself. If it weren't for the partner bond, Ryo _knew_ what Millenniummon did to people. If he could even shut it down temporarily, who knew what Millenniummon would have done while he was able to treat Ryo like he was just any other human? Nothing that would have left Ryo in any condition to help fight him afterwards, that was for sure.

"…You are fortunate that I am aware my partner's fondness for dragon children is a reflection of his core's knowledge of _my_ child form," Millenniummon told Chibimon. "That is the _only_ reason I planned to allow you to be in Ryo's presence: so I could watch him play with you and spoil you."

He'd see Ryo's friendship with V-mon as nothing but a reflection of _their_ bond, just like he'd been able to find some affection for Wormmon by seeing the little bug as something that would let him practice for Ryo?

If Ryo was living with these two… Having Wormmon and V-mon there would have been like old times. He would still have hoped that his partner would be found someday, but those two would have distracted him from the ache…

So he wouldn't notice that the ache was gone. Because his partner would have been right there by his side. In Ken's body.

"You really are diabolical, you know that?" he told Millenniummon.

"You know me well, my partner, even as I understand your _true_ power." Once again he felt the touch of cool scales against his cheek. Didn't snakes go to sleep if they weren't warm?

"If you wanted to learn how to pretend to be Ken so much, then why didn't you let Ken stay in control most of the time?" Daisuke asked. "You can't have wanted to go to class and do homework!"

"I needed distractions. Practice makes perfect. Experiencing the tedium of those classes made it possible to divine the proper emotions to show when asked about them." That was three reasons, but doing anything for only one reason was bad tactics. "And you, Child of Kindness? Since Ryo wants me here, I'm sure he wishes me to indulge you."

"…I knew that I'd see Ryo again, that he'd show up with some Digimon who had helped him," Ken said. "What you did wasn't right, but I know I got off lightly compared to everyone else you controlled." He hadn't been forced to attack his friends. "That was for Ryo's sake, so even when he was gone, my friend was still protecting me. I couldn't have nudged Gennai into finding a way for me to keep my memories on my own, and as for sealing the Four Holy Beasts!"

"Don't sell yourself short, Ken." Daisuke frowned at him.

Ken shook his head. "I was always in Osamu's shadow. If I forgot Ryo and everyone else, and they forgot me? I would have forgotten all my new friends, even _Wormmon_. I wouldn't have known how to start contacting Koushiro and Wallace, and I wouldn't have thought they would want to talk to me. I couldn't have found V-mon's egg, or… You never met Millenniummon back then, Daisuke, and the others don't remember him. I do," he said, shuddering. "The Millenniummon I remember would have let Osamu die instead of using his power and risking anyone realizing there was more to it than just a program and my crest. If Osamu died and Ryo found out when he got here, my friend would have tried to help me feel better by spending time with me." Giving the usurper of Ken's body even more time to spend bonding with his partner. "Hikari's right."

"I mean, if _Hikari_ really thinks he changed because of his partner I guess she'd know, but… Hey, what are you doing?" Daisuke demanded, and that was when Ryo looked down and saw the loose head had gone into his chest. He had a moment to realize that yes, it _was_ doing something to him instead of just phasing through him the way those coils were ignoring the solidity of the mattress, and then he felt his mind falling back into his partner's form.

"Ryo!" Ken and Wormmon yelled.

"Did you just eat him?" he heard Daisuke exclaim, shocked.

Through a strange double vision (literally double – two pairs of eyes), Ryo saw V-mon ram right through MoonMillenniummon into Ken's wall, trying to headbutt the insubstantial Ultimate to force him to release Ryo.

"Is it good for you too?" MoonMillenniummon asked from all around him, and that was when Ryo became conscious of his body, or something _like_ his body but without any actual organs, floating somewhere.

"What did you do?" Ryo demanded.

"Ryo? Are you still in there?" Ken asked.

Ryo turned his… wait, _his_ heads? And Ken had heard his voice? "Am I in control of MoonMillenniummon's body? How does this even work?"

"Biomerge digivolution," his partner's voice resounded inside his head. Heads? Ryo really wasn't sure. "A technique of the other timeline I split off from this one for experimental data. It really shouldn't work in the human world, but I am the spirit of a God and you are the Child of Miracles." He laughed. "If we remain one, I will not be able to use my powers unless _we_ use them. Together."

...A way to seal MoonMillenniummon? That meant Ryo would have to stay in the body of a Digimon. That was a small price to pay, he knew, "But I just got home," Ryo said quietly, despairingly. "My family missed me for four years, I…" He couldn't say 'I can't' when what he meant was 'I don't want to.' His fists, or maybe just the mental image of his fists clenched, but then he released them. "I should have known," he said, eyes dull. "You wanted both worlds, you wouldn't even let anyone have their own _minds_. Of course you wouldn't be satisfied with an hour a day."

For him to get home after so long, after his parents must have started to think that he wasn't coming home no matter what Ken said, just for them to lose him _again?_

"…You have spent four hours with me today. I would have offered you your choice of the snacks I keep there for Kera and Keramon if you had not become upset," his partner said, and let go. "I am aware that humans need some time apart, even from those they love."

 _But I don't love you_ , Ryo didn't say as they separated. He wished he did, he wished he had a partner he could love instead of one who kept doing terrifying things without even thinking of asking. Even to his own partner.

Opening his eyes, he tried to just be grateful that he was back in the real world, with his clothes back on.

"Look at him," MoonMillenniummon said, coiling in the air above him. "Once again I have overwhelmed my own partner, until he trembles at the sight of me. I cannot even barter to spend time in possession of the Child of Kindness, borrow the brain and spirit that let me pretend the softness he desires convincingly, or it will upset him even further."

"Of course I'll help," Ken said. "I'm not letting him possess me!" he quickly reassured a gasping Wormmon and a murderous-looking V-mon and Daisuke. "But my friend needs me," he told them apologetically, because he really had to help.

Daisuke folded his arms and let out a long-suffering sigh. "I guess I can't stop you then, but you're definitely letting me and V-mon come over to keep an eye on things."

Ken smiled. "Sure, Daisuke."

"I won you your crush: now win me my partner," MoonMillenniummon ordered him.

Daisuke blushed beet red. Ken stared.

"…It scares him less when I am blunt than when I speak to him as I wish to speak to him."

He should probably be trying to get up and get away after the god had _absorbed_ him, Ryo acknowledged. He was just tired, and… and… Ryo grasped for words, different words than the reality: even though his partner was terrifying, he still felt safe here, and after so many terrifying things today he wanted to feel this way. He wanted the illusion. No, he wanted it to be real.

Ken looked at them thoughtfully. "It's not just that you have a hard time thinking of how to be considerate of others when you're not in character, is it? Ryo is… You're not used to feeling like this, and it's hard to handle strong feelings and _think_ at the same time." Ken glanced at Daisuke for a moment, then smiled. "Right, Daisuke?"

"Hey, it's not my fault I get stupid sometimes when I like people, it's my crest! Just like you're way too nice and it gets _you_ in trouble!"

"You let him get in trouble?" Ryo demanded, frowning up at the dark god, and then blinked when he realized that he'd spoken. Wasn't that the only good thing about Millenniummon possessing Ken, that he'd taken _care_ of him while Ryo was gone?

"My host body decided to crush on a hero. Certain tactics were obvious." Red eyes looked down at him, impossible to read. His heads leaned down, watching Ryo for his reaction now.

Ryo wasn't going to struggle if Millenniummon tried to wrap around him again, but… he didn't want to have that conversation. If he offered, Millenniummon would think that Ryo meant things that he probably didn't.

"Ask him?" Ken prompted.

"Ask him what?"

"Well, what do you want him to do?"

"I want him to accept that he is bound to me eternally and become content with his fate, the way your partners are content. I want him to run to my side and climb into my coils for no reason but the joy of being near me, the way that Wormmon sought my lap. I wish for a number of things that can be done once he has reached physical maturity, but for now I want him to accept my training and teaching, to see his keen mind and strong will bent to some purpose other than my defeat."

"Teaching Wormmon how to cook was your idea?" Daisuke realized.

"It gave him more confidence, and with more confidence came not mere gratitude but more affection, when he had a reason to believe he was worthy to be in his partner's presence." A laugh. "Thinking that Ken would enjoy the sight of breakfast more than the presence of his partner: I thought it ridiculous, but now I am living that child's delusion and it _irks_ me. To know that my partner does not enjoy the gift of my presence, but only endures it for the sake of _others_." MoonMillenniummon began to wrap around Ryo again, and Ryo didn't struggle.

He even put his hand on top of that head again, when MoonMillenniummon rested it on his shoulder. Hoping that he would?

It was one thing for MoonMillenniummon to be jealous because he wanted Ryo to be his and his alone, for him to try to attack and kill or drive off all of Ryo's protectors so Ryo would be helpless.

It was another to realize that his partner was _hurt_ by Ryo not wanting to be anywhere near an evil god.

Wanting his partner to love him… didn't every Digimon feel that way? It was normal, maybe even nice. Not the same thing as wanting to separate Ryo from everyone _else_ that Ryo loved. Not the same thing as wanting Ryo to be alone except for him.

That was what he'd tried to do, by flinging Ryo forward in time, but then he'd changed his plans. What he'd said in the lab: he'd planned to keep Ryo surrounded by not just friends in the other Chosen Children, but Wormmon and V-mon. He'd… he'd actually planned to make Ryo happy. Happy with people who loved him in a world where he didn't have to fight.

Huh. "You're actually really bad at this," Ryo realized, sitting up and holding that head to his shoulder so Millenniummon didn't think that Ryo was trying to get him off.

"While your strength and will are beyond compare, that Wormmon is far better at accepting affection than you are."

" _Ken's_ affection," Ryo reminded him. "I'd like it if you were nice," he told those red eyes. "You're actually trying to be, aren't you? You just don't know how to act like…"

MoonMillenniummon shook his head. "My acting abilities have deceived gods and heroes alike. I cannot _act_ when that would mean lying to you. I am driven to show you the core of me, and I am an evil god."

"Not acting-acting, but… remembering to ask before just going ahead and merging with people," Ryo told him. "I know you didn't ask Digimon what they wanted." They were just things to him. "Does what I want matter to you?"

"Your desires are my core's desires."

"Then if that's true, then act like it," Ryo told him.

"…Strategy, taking into account victory conditions, instead of deception?" A slow nod. The serpent's eyes narrowed, but his expression was anything but hostile, and a tongue darted out to taste the air (taste Ryo's scent on the air?) leisurely. "Your tactical acumen, even with so little memory to grant wisdom, is part of why I am pleased that you are my partner and frustrated that you are not yet _mine_. I desire you greatly, my Ryo," he murmured, and then frowned, eyes clearing, belatedly realizing that he'd been creepy again. "Even if I wish I did not desire you. It would make this far easier."

This was not going to be easy, but Ryo had taught Digimon how to fight, right? His partner wasn't stupid, and if he was willing to listen to Ken even if he'd despised Ken before? Wanted to try to learn for Ryo's sake?

Maybe, maybe, eventually, Ryo might someday have not Agumon or V-mon or a nemesis, but his partner. It still seemed impossible, but perhaps, if he played his cards right, he could make it possible? Someday?


	8. A Good Partner

"It's not a choice," he'd told his parents. "I don't think it is for either of us. I saw the others and their partners. I _wanted_ what they had. Someone who would help them no matter what. No, it's not about that, not about having help when I need it, but having someone who would _want_ to protect me."

"But he doesn't. He attacked you, he tore you out of your life, he tried to manipulate you like that. That's _not_ looking out for your welfare, Ryo."

"I know. I know just how evil he is." It made him smile. "I _know_ just what he'd do to me, if he could get away with it. _That_ part I actually like. That he can't just do what he wants anymore. He can't enjoy killing anymore. His core is forcing him to focus on me and leave the digital world alone. His own core is sabotaging him and he knows it. He's a god and an evil genius and he had four years to try to come up with something and he couldn't. I don't know if his core even let him _look_ for a way out, when finding a way out would let him harm me and he has to protect me. For a different Digimon, being the partner of a Chosen Child would be an honor, but for him? _This_ is why I was summoned to the Digital World. Because he's helpless against me. Good," Ryo said, remembering newly freed Digimon screaming at the memories of what they'd been made to do under Millenniummon's control. "He should get a taste of his own medicine."

* * *

When Ryo got to the top of the broken crystal mountain, seeing Kera curled up in MoonMillenniummon's coils always made him pause. It wasn't just because Kera looked like Ken. Kera's hair was shorter than Ken's and that left it messier, a mass of soft tufts almost like spikes. Way shorter than Taichi's, though.

He was utterly fearless around MoonMillenniummon: it just did not seem to occur to him that the two-headed dragon might be dangerous or cruel instead of someone to snuggle up to in hope of treats. Kera's affection for Millenniummon was cheerfully mercenary. Selfish and somehow still innocent, like a kid eager to go to their grandparents' because there would be hugs and candy.

Keramon was grateful, there was no question of that, but from the hard look Ryo sometimes saw in those green eyes when neither of Millenniummon's heads was looking in his direction, he remembered that his creator had sent him out to kill and then let him die when he fled to the Digital World. He seemed to want to play pretend with his creator, pretend his creator loved him, but how much of that was because he'd gotten Kera out of playing Millenniummon's pet? Or because he was afraid the gift of a partner might be taken away, that Millenniummon might let Kera die as casually as he had Diablomon?

Ryo didn't know whether or not he wanted some part of it to be that Keramon wished his creator did, that his creator _could_ love him. Might want to play with him for normal reasons instead of to kill time or practice for Ryo somehow. Digimon didn't have parents, but Diablomon had devoured tons of data on the human world, so he should understand the concept. Should be able to see the difference between loving parents and his creator, the way Ryo could see the difference between everyone else's partners and his own. Given how powerful Diablomon was, it would be a good thing if he had a heart. The fact he wanted his partner didn't really prove anything about how much of a danger he was to the rest of the world: _Millenniummon_ wanted his partner.

On the other hand, Ryo didn't want someone else to be stuck craving something they could never have.

Was it really that out of reach, though? When Wormmon's pain when he found out Ken was possessed and he hadn't noticed had registered with Millenniummon enough for him to remember to scold Ryo for it two weeks later?

Had protecting and looking out for Wormmon become force of habit? Was he _capable_ of it now? Was it maybe possible that he might grow something that passed for empathy, or a conscience?

Kera was napping on black coils in the sun: they must be really warm, thought Ryo, as a red-eyed head untangled itself from those coils to look up at him.

Ryo walked towards him. He didn't want Millenniummon to move and wake up the kid, right? Kera seemed to need a lot of sleep, even if he'd been programmed to walk and talk. "Hey," Ryo said, voice soft and half of his attention on Kera. He cleared his throat when he realized how he'd sounded. "I know what you're doing, you know," he warned the evil god.

"Which aspect of what activity?"

"Carrying a cute accessory around." Like someone using a puppy to pick up chicks. Or Chosen Children in this particular case.

"Demonstrating that I am capable of not crushing the hearts and minds of fragile humanoid creatures?" Millenniummon said, considering the matter. "As expected of you. That is part of this, yes. I considered attempting to make you jealous, the way seeing you with V-mon and Agumon used to… Hmm. Used to confuse me on some level. Why were you across the battlefield from me, why was that Digimon where I should be? Will you not take your proper place, Ryo?" The place currently occupied by a substitute?

"And wake up Kera?"

"I am a bodiless spirit: you should know that. After all, you are the one who killed my body. This form is a manifestation. If I choose, I can manifest something larger."

A cloud passed between them and the sun. No, Ryo realized, looking past MoonMillenniummon to see a fold in the sky, a line where the darkness was greater.

He looked up: yes, MoonMillenniummon's crystal had appeared around them. Around the entire mountain peak.

Trapped?

No. The crystal wasn't solid: it was a ghost, just like the rest of MoonMillenniummon.

But he could make that body solid when he chose. Solid enough for Kera to lie on top of those coils, solid enough to trap Ryo within them.

The thought should have scared him, and it did scare part of him. Another part of him thought it sounded nice.

To have his partner wrapped around him. No one could get to him without going through a god.

He would be _safe_. No more running for cover, no more threat of Millenniummon's return hanging over his head, going home knowing that he would have to go back. Or maybe Millenniummon would find some way to take him out in the human world. Send a sniper or a poisonous Digimon instead of a nuclear missile this time, something the other Chosen Children wouldn't notice and intercept.

Wasn't it at least a little tempting? The thought of having a partner who was normal, the way Keramon might want a normal father?

It was good Ryo's parents were still alive, and hadn't spent all those years crying over an empty casket.

That was part of why he stepped forward and said, "This is fine." He sat down next to where Millenniummon's head came out of the coils, and just leaned back against him instead of trying to climb in. He didn't want to disturb Kera – or Keramon, who was wrapped around his partner securely instead of just lying on him. "What?" he asked, since there was something about the way Millenniummon was looking down at him that didn't seem like it was just enjoying Ryo's presence.

"I am your enemy, and yet you give me what I need," Millenniummon said. Despite the fact he'd just pointed out why Ryo shouldn't be allowing liberties, he still bent that head to touch Ryo's cheek.

"You're my partner, and yet you attack me. I think you've got which part of our relationship is wrong backwards." It wasn't the two of them looking out for each other that was wrong, it was the two of them fighting. It was Millenniummon murdering people that was wrong, not _being kind_ , of all the twisted thoughts.

"You are correct, by the way. I am quite certain that your summoning was the Will of the Digital World's revenge for Spiral Mountain. Among other things. Becoming a god equal to it made me an even greater threat. Greater than Apocalymon," if Millenniummon did say so himself. "Denying my own partner would have eaten away at me. Fighting my own partner, even unknowing? It was meant to break me."

"Right, you heard that conversation." Ryo laughed. "Stalker."

"I _could_ take a page from Tailmon's book and obtain a pair of binoculars or two. Slither in through the walls of your apartment and place bugs connected to headphones, if you prefer the methods of guarding an unacknowledged partner available to a lesser Digimon to mine."

A huge night-scaled two-headed dragon perched somewhere with a line of sight to his window, binoculars balanced on his tail since he didn't have hands to hold them in place? Not going to be missed in Tokyo, even if it had been almost five years now since the Odaiba Incident. "Don't panic everyone." Not cool. "And what do you mean, unacknowledged partner?"

"I mean that after Hikari and Tailmon acknowledged each other the bond calmed in her core. She was able to leave Hikari's side almost immediately."

"She needed the Crest of Light to evolve and protect Hikari from Vamdemon. I don't think she _wanted_ to go," Ryo told the dragon. He frowned. "I knew it. You've just been biding your time until you stop caring about me. You don't want to be my partner, you want to go back to your old ways."

"You speak as though wanting my mind back, wishing to escape this with my will unbroken, is somehow improper."

"Escape this?" Escape this? Escape Ryo?

Why did those words hurt so much?

"As though you would not wish the same. Bound to your enemy, to the ultimate evil? The Digimon of this time do not know you. The Chosen Children who insulted you to your face during the tournament where you were meant to win the prize of _death_ now whisper behind your back. They ask if you are truly a hero, and conclude that you could not possibly be one. Not when you are my partner. Not when the only voice raised in your defense all these years was Ken's, and they have no reason to believe he would have done that of his own will."

Ignoring Millenniummon's contempt for, well, everything (and also the attempt to turn him against the other Chosen Children), Ryo said, "I've acknowledged you. I've wanted a partner since I understood what they were. I _dreamed_ of having a partner. I'm not going to turn my back on mine now that I finally know who you are. Even if we do end up having to fight again." And only part of the reason was that it was stupid to turn his back on an enemy. "If our bond is still unstable, I think you know whose fault that is."

"The fault of whatever fate bound me to a hero, seeking my destruction."

"Does it really have to be destruction?" Ryo asked him, wishing there wasn't desperation in his heart. "Fighting each other, over and over: is that _really_ what you thought was the best we could get? Do you still think that way?"

"We could not have biomerged if our thoughts were not compatible. You spent the entire time we were merged wishing to escape me."

"Because you startled me, and then you scared me! I thought I wouldn't be able to go home again, I thought… Partners aren't supposed to make each other feel alone," Ryo knew. So why…

"You say that as though solitude is not an enviable state. It was the awakening of this bond that forced me to surround myself with lesser creatures to stave it off, to blunt the edge of the claw buried in my core. Eating grass to quiet my stomach, but there was no nourishment in it. Realizing how pathetic it was that I had become grateful to that grass, for there was so little that gave me even a moment's relief. That I wanted a pathetic Wormmon kept intact, for I had come to _need_ him." The Digimon shuddered. "Looking at me, with those eyes… Yes, Ryo, I resent you. I resent the times you were brought to my attention, and not merely as a Digimon resents the one who slew them. As a human resents the doses of arsenic they were tricked into ingesting, once they know that poison is sealed away within their body, and if they cease to take the slow poison the amount already within them will be released and slay them."

Why? Why did it hurt so much to hear those words, to hear the venom in his partner's voice? Even though he understood why Millenniummon would feel this way – no one liked being helpless, and the evil god wasn't exactly used to it.

So he was a poison instead of a friend to his partner? Their growing bond was a cancer corrupting and consuming a core that used to function in a way that was healthy in Millenniummon's eyes, if no one else's?

He had to scrunch his eyes tight shut, because he was too old for the tears that wanted to come. Especially according to the calendar date. He had to turn away, wanting to hide, wanting his partner to not be looking at him like this, even if it meant showing his back to the enemy.

"…Too many truths," Millenniummon finally realized. "You are a most deadly poison, a most keenly honed blade?"

"Not helping. I don't want to kill you."

"Oh? Was I imagining…"

" _You_ I wanted to kill," Ryo interrupted him. "My partner I don't."

"So I am not wrong." Dark triumph in there, a point scored, a confession obtained. "You do wish to slay _me_ , and have the partner you were promised."

"And what about you?" Ryo asked him.

"I want to _not want_ a partner. I want to be free of this need!"

"And what would you do then?"

"Shatter both worlds, break and bind the cores of the survivors and reshape them to my will."

"You don't see anything wrong with that, but it's wrong for the world to try to change you first, to defend itself?" Aaargh! "Why can't you just stop being evil!" Ryo demanded, getting to his feet.

"I am an evil god! You ask me not to be myself!"

This didn't quite fit with much of what Millenniummon said to him when Ryo went down into the caves: Ryo _wanted_ to think that Millenniummon was lying now, even if it made more sense that he had been lying back then…

Or there were two truths: the truth of Millenniummon's core, the part of him that longed for Ryo, and the cruel mind that longed for conquest.

"Funny you should mention that. The part about asking me not to be myself. When isn't that why you made the Dark Seed? To break me and turn me into someone who wouldn't care about the worlds? Maybe I should want a partner who isn't you, but what would happen then, to me _and_ my partner? You'd kill both of us! And my parents, and all my friends! So maybe the others are right, maybe being your partner _is_ evidence that I'm evil, if I'm okay with my existence being something that works to force you to _stop!_ If I'm okay with being a weapon against my partner, if that's the only way to protect everyone! If I want the part of you that sees everyone as things to hurry up and break, so everyone will be safe! So my _partner_ will be safe! So I won't have to, so no one will have to kill you anymore! Sure, it's wrong, but you started it and I don't know if… I don't know if I have a right to change anything. You're my partner so you're my responsibility so I have to stop you, so I can't choose to not be your partner when that would mean I couldn't stop you. No matter how much I want a dragon child looking up with me with eyes that _aren't red!_ "

Those dark coils began to shift, a second head rearing up, both of them meeting Ryo's eyes. "My child form's eyes _are_ red."

And why on earth did Ryo suddenly feel like he'd gone too far, like he'd hurt his partner as well as the evil god? "How would I know that?" he asked, as something of an apology. "I've never seen you in any form but a scary Ultimate. If you were an innocent Child I wouldn't care _what_ color your eyes were. I told Gennai I'd be happy with _any_ partner, even a Picodevimon, even if Patamon and Takeru would never forgive me. Wormmon's a virus type, and he's…" Sweet, loving and loyal. Would never dream of fighting or hurting Ken. Or telling Ken that he was, "A fate worse than death. Is that really what I am for you?"

"Death is a momentary inconvenience. _You_ are an all-consuming _erasure_ that leaves part of me _wanting_ to be consumed. I struggle against the current and my own core sabotages me, seeks to break my fingers to keep me from clawing my way free."

The darkness _shuddered_.

There was horror in that voice that caused so much horror. Desperation. A note that in any other Digimon would mean they were about to ask Ryo for help. Because that was what the Chosen Children were for. If Ryo was one (but was he?) then they could count on Ryo. They could look towards him for _hope_ , but to his own _partner_ he was despair.

He wanted to tell Millenniummon that things were going to be okay. Not just because Millenniummon was his partner but because he was a Digimon. A _scared_ Digimon.

Part of Milleniummon wanted to break, to give in. Part of him wanted to have his life back (no matter how many other people's lives would be lost). Part of him had posed as Ken to try to find some way to have Ryo and remain himself, to only give in and become something soft and kind on the outside, while his true core, hidden away, could still plot and use people and manipulate the world to his liking.

Disguise the outside so the inside could remain cold, hard steel, because if he didn't find some way to give in enough to appease his core's need that core would break. Either itself or him, the mind that resisted, the self that had wishes that were more than just instincts.

"I do feel sorry for you. I wish this wasn't happening, but that's half a lie. I wish it didn't need to happen," he said, stepping closer, putting a hand on the side of one of those heads. "I do want to find a way for us to be partners without anyone dying or having their mind violated. Anymore. Even you."

"You will _always_ choose the world over me."

"We have to live in the world."

"No, we do not." Millenniummon's contempt: was it only for the world, or partially for Ryo, that he was attached to it?

"Well, I want to. I don't… feeling alone is terrible." Even with Ken, Gennai, Wormmon and V-mon still on his side after the revelation of the tournament, feeling that everyone else had been in on something together and he was the one on the outside, locked out? Why hadn't they told him the truth, why hadn't they treated him as one of them, after everything he'd done for them? "I need friends to be okay, and since you need me to be okay now, then yeah, we kind of do need the world intact. I know this feels unreasonable and high-maintenance or whatever to you, but really. It's not. It's a change for you, I get that, it's different, but different doesn't have to mean bad."

"It is not bad, and that is only more proof that my thoughts are being twisted. Humans are as soft and useless as Numemon, with even less physical prowess, and yet I found myself enjoying their company. Things I had always despised began to become necessities."

"Was it really so bad?" Ryo asked him. "Was being kind to people and seeing them smile really so bad?"

"It _felt…_ but I am not a creature of _feelings_."

"No, you are. Everyone is. You're a creature of _power_ , right? Feelings are power for Digimon, and probably humans too."

"Semantics. Twisting words because you wish for me to give in. And yet." The dark serpent sighed.

"You're my partner. Aren't I supposed to want what's best for you? Is it really so bad, to give in before you break?"

"I have already bent. I have already changed, I have already compromised myself. It is _not enough_ ," he said with quiet desperation, a hint at the mad need and desire restrained only by a will of steel. "You wish me, this programming wishes me to bend, and bend, surrender more and more of myself to you until finally there is no more give and I break. Until the mask consumes me."

"What's the worst that could happen?"

"From my perspective or yours?"

Right, he'd mentioned that he might destroy all of time and this was _better than alternatives_ to Millenniummon. "From yours," he said, stroking the side of his neck. "You are my partner. That does mean I care about what happens to you. I don't like to see you like this any more than I'd like to stand by and watch you kill people."

"And yet you gloated of the effect you had on me."

"And you've gloated about killing the Digimon who were helping me, when failing them made _me_ feel miserable. Like I couldn't help anyone." Not a hero, just an inadequate substitute for the real heroes. "I'm angry at you, Millenniummon. I'm hoping that if you understand what you've been doing to people it'll make you change. That's different from wanting you to suffer just so you'll suffer. I want this to happen so all of this can _stop_. So everyone will be okay."

"It _claws_ at me, over and over, until it becomes impossible to be rational, until I am willing to lose my rationality just to cease to be aware of it. Until madness seems like blessed relief from loneliness, when _I never suffered from loneliness before_."

"So if I'm with you, if you're not alone, then what? What's the worst that can happen then?"

"It is hard to think. Of that. So much of me thinks that you are the only thing that matters, that it does not matter what I must give up to be your adoring _Wormmon_." The serpent shuddered.

Ryo had to frown, and bop him gently on the snout. "That's my friend you're insulting. He can't help being born weak: being a Wormmon just proves that _he's_ even braver and stronger. A lot braver than you."

"Your loyalty to a Wormmon overrides any loyalty you might have to me."

"You're being stupid. I'm not going to ignore you being stupid just because you're my partner. Or being a jerk." Ryo put his hands on either side of that head. "Would it really be so bad to stop hurting people? You've mostly stopped, right? You told me so. Even Hikari agrees that you weren't a sadist like Vamdemon. What would be so bad about sitting on my lap while I do my homework and you can do your science? My parents are really spoiling me, so I can buy snacks for you. I could carry you in my bag, and you could just look up and see that I'm there instead of spying on me from the Digital World. I can… I can be a good partner, right?" The note of pleading in his voice surprised him, but no wonder it was there, really. "A lot of Digimon said they wanted a partner like me. I learned how to take really good care of Digimon, I promise."

"I know. I watched you serve as a substitute partner. Watched them use you and your skills and care to gain power, but then all of them returned to their own partners or to the wilderness, didn't they. None of the ones without partners you raised to Ultimate came to aid you in your second battle against me, or in the tournament, now did they?" Millenniummon chuckled. "For a Wormmon to aid you, while Ultimates wash their hands of you… Perhaps you do fear that only the weak see you as worthy, and only for how they can _use_ you. That is simply the way of the Digital World, Ryo. You have no one to blame but yourself for fighting for them. For _letting_ yourself be used. For aiding them without asking anything in return, even that illusion called loyalty. You sold yourself and your power so very cheaply… _my partner_ was allowed to sell himself so cheaply. Your unthinking generosity was used and the Holy Beasts intended to _use you up._ It _enrages_ me. My will and my programming both wish to reduce this world to ashes, to _use up_ all of the Chosen Children save those too young to have been involved in your betrayal, but you do not wish it and so I cannot even protect you by avenging the wrongs done against you. If they think that they can use you like this, then they have no reason not to seek to use you again!"

The other Chosen Children had been too guilty. Ken had been too shocked. None of them, not one, had been angry on Ryo's behalf. His partner was. His partner bared his fangs and wanted to rip apart the people who hurt him, and Ryo had to close his eyes, wipe at them with the back of his arm. "I… Maybe… Thank you." He swallowed. "Thank you."

"Why does it affect you so, to hear your own value? To hear that how you were treated was wrong?"

Outrage there, and even if Millenniummon probably still didn't understand that it was wrong to use other people who weren't Ryo, Ryo still stepped forward, looking through bleary eyes, to lean against one of those necks, sit down on those scaled coils.

They were warm this time. Probably from the sunlight.

"Those vermin treated you as if you were no better than one of them, when you were _my_ partner, their only prayer of survival against me!"

Ryo put a hand up to hold that mouth closed, even if Millenniummon wasn't speaking with either of those mouths. That wasn't what he wanted to hear.

"Do you think… Do you think I deserve to be…" to be what? Ryo didn't even know what he was asking.

"That you deserve better than to be used by those who don't know your value? Yes." Of course, and Ryo was a fool to fight for them. "Or is it… Do I think that you deserve to be my partner?"

"Is it true, that if it weren't for your core… It probably is," Ryo said with an empty laugh, dropping his hands to his sides. "I know how you treat everyone else. I'd just be another dead enemy if I weren't your partner. Of course you wouldn't love me, you don't love anyone. Even my own partner doesn't think I'm worth caring about! Ken can't help it, he's the Child of Kindness. He'll be kind to _anybody_. The other Digidestined were heroes, and they still trusted the Four Holy Beasts instead of thinking I had a right to know what was going on. You want me because of your programming, they want me because of the power they can get from me. I thought that someday I wouldn't just be Taichi and Daisuke's substitute. That there would be a Digimon who was _for me_. Who wanted _me_ instead of just what I could do for him. I should have known better. They were right: I'm _not_ a real Chosen Child. I'm just a weapon _no one wants_."

"Why do you _want_ to be wanted? Why does _anyone_?" MoonMillenniummon sighed. "Human instinct. I've studied your kind. Programming in your core makes you need others, because you're too pathetically weak to survive on your own. We both share this cursed desire, but you do not understand that it is a curse, because you're programmed to feel good when the need is sated. To derive pleasure from being loved. There is pleasure in it," he admitted about as willingly as if the words were being extracted with pliers. "I have tasted the bond between that Wormmon and Ken, and my new pets. There is pleasure in seeing you smile, in watching you press against me like this, hoping that I will give you what _you_ are programmed to need. There was pleasure and _rage_ in seeing you begin to cry simply because their idiocy _enrages_ me. What a _waste_ , that my plans were ruined because those _fools_ used you, when they should not have _dared_ to even speak to you. To think they were worthy of your favor? I have not been able to savor the thought of destroying the enemy since I removed the Four Holy Beasts!"

"But you don't want to be my partner," Ryo knew, and ached with it.

"…You're in pain. Stop being in pain. Right now, if I said that I was willing to be your partner, you would have to think it was a lie, someone said only because I am programmed to protect… Ah. Perhaps there is some usefulness in being unable to lie to you. I _cannot know_ if _I_ truly want to be your partner or not. Not when my judgment is skewed, my thoughts twisted by this instinct. Yet… you have said that you would wish to be my partner in order to stop me and preserve the world you need to survive. Because you need to not be alone. If I attempt to value our bond, value you for your potential usefulness to me… If I must be bound to a human such that when they die I will no longer be reborn, I suppose it is best to be tied to one whose power makes them very difficult to kill. You are intelligent and willing to serve, so you would be more useful than other humans once I managed to convince you to serve _me_. If I must be bound to one among seven billion vermin, you are a higher quality of human than most of them." The head he had touched leaned down to press a cold kiss to his cheek, the other wrapping its neck around him. "We are upsetting Kera now."

Ryo opened his eyes and looked up to see a wide-eyed younger version of Ken peeking at him over the coils. ' _Mommy and Daddy are fighting,'_ he thought.

Millenniummon's tail pushed the frozen Kera forward, and Ryo found a human's arms wrapped around him too.

Not Keramon's tentacles. That might have been a little much.

"You don't want any of what I can give you. You don't _want_ to want it. It's not willing, it's not real. I know it's stupid, hypocritical of me to be okay with forcing you, with using this as a weapon, and then turning around and complaining about what it means that it's being forced from you at gunpoint. I feel so… I just feel…"

Ryo swallowed. "Is it my fault? Is it because I'm evil? Because I'm okay with you suffering to make you change when that's _cruel_ and you're my _partner._ Like going back to places I'd already gotten past just to find Digimon for the Digimon I was training to fight and kill so they could get stronger. It was necessary because I wasn't strong enough to just make them strong, but _suffering and death_ to get what I want… I wanted a partner for so long, but I'm a horrible partner, aren't I? I…"

"Do not be ridiculous," said the darkness wrapped around him. "You, evil? I have offered you the world, Ryo, and vengeance on those who used you. You are too good for your own good. The good of either of us." He sighed. "I do want the bliss that will come from having you for my own, Ryo. I also wish to remain myself. Sometimes I wish to kill you, or that I had never met you, but if you die, my core will follow you. Better to have my partner be a known quantity, better to keep you where I can protect you than exist not knowing when my existence will end. Once my conquest of the Digital World was complete, I would have hunted you down regardless before commencing my assault on the human world, to be sure that you were not eliminated during the opening salvo."

To be sure Ryo wasn't living in one of the cities Millenniummon had planned to wipe off the map to demonstrate his power.

"If I was a young Digimon, then a human who had trained in strategy, who had learned how to make Digimon powerful? I could not ask for a better partner. I have simply had thousands of years in which to surpass you. True, until you have learned more you will be useless to me save for the pleasure you can give me, but that would be true of any human, and at least you have learned the basic concepts and have an aptitude for warfare. I have never enjoyed the lamentations of my enemies, but that is because they bore me and an enemy must be _alive_ to lament." Instead of properly blown up into a thousand bytes of data. "But seeing you upset pains me, Ryo. If that is what you wish me to learn, then I will admit that I have begun to learn it, if that will make you happy."

"I feel so pathetic, this is the second time I've broken down," at least he hadn't been crying the first time, just overwhelmed, knowing that he couldn't handle this, that he was _useless_ when his partner needed him, when he had a chance to have his partner.

"You are a child. I am an Ultimate. To send you to battle against me, to expect you to match me, is lunacy. Is cruelty. You are in even more danger of breaking than I am, Ryo, because you are young and fragile. You cannot bear a thousandth of what I can endure. Surviving me would be impossible for you, if you did not possess your power. There are words you need to hear. It pleased Wormmon when Ken was angry on his behalf, and Gennai felt the same way. I have already crushed your enemies, Ryo, but there is more to it than that… Being told that how you were treated was wrong. The knowledge that someone wants to help, wants to change things for you. I will, if you will let me. You may use my power, and the world can be shaped to your liking."

"I don't want the world. I want my partner."

"You have just said that you care for the world more than me… Aaaaaaah," the serpent breathed. "You care for the fate of the world, but your core drives you to need your partner. Just as I desire to take the worlds for my own, but you must come first. So we are alike in this. You too are caught between your desires and your needs."

Hearing that he was like Millenniummon shouldn't have been a relief, but he still felt the trembling smile on his lips. "Is that so?" It was so. "Right. How do I do right by my partner, and the world?"

"I care for you and myself. You wish me to add the world to my list? Add yourself to _your_ list. You cannot bend me to your purposes if you yourself are broken."

"I'll go visit Ken and Daisuke before I go home. They're a big help." Daisuke was simple like a sledgehammer, and sometimes he needed that when it felt like this was far too complex to ever work out. "You too. Thank you, Kera."

"Bring snacks," Kera said, meeting Ryo's eyes with a child's seriousness. "Snacks are good. Keramon likes me, so he's very happy when I feed him snacks. When your partner is happy you'll be happy and both of you will be happy."

And if Ryo bought snacks, he'd inevitably end up giving some to Kera.

It must be nice, to be innocent enough to think that everything would work out.


	9. Not Without Help

_On Daisuke in this ficverse... Being Ken's jogress partner made him automatically an asset, so Mille was looking at how to maximize his usefulness. Daisuke's an energetic extrovert with a friendly nature, a helpful streak a mile wide and leadership skills that... Taichi made a very good call picking him for the 02 team's leader, the problem was that Takeru and Hikari needed therapy._

 _Mille!Ken was already social linking with humans and Digimon, but Daisuke actually enjoyed that kind of thing, and having him take point let Mille be less obvious about being a mover and shaker once the reason/excuse he had to be one was dealt with._ _I'll spare you the technobabble, but the Daisuke-and-Ken combination is powerful enough to kill Super Ultimates in animeverse (I firmly believe they could do something permanent to Mille himself and that's how 02 should have ended, since the Kimeramon arc means Daisuke can tap Ryo's power), and then someone who understood how the entire system worked min-maxed them. Since this was to Ryo's benefit (like sparing Ken in the second game) there wasn't any self-sabotage._

 _Mille's planning to create BlackWarGreymon because if the spire system is a_ person _, the modern Chosen Children who have had the benefit of a peaceful Digital World aren't going to want to kill someone who's never done anything to them. It also means the person running the Digital World is an innocent instead of an evil god (even if said innocent is keeping things the way Mille wants them), instantly less objectionable to heroes. And less work for him._

 _If they don't figure out that Diablomon/Keramon has been turned into the Dimension Lord of the Network dimension (same thing as the Digital World in Tamers, separate dimensions entirely in Adventure 'verse), he has no reason to tell them._

 _In a timeline that got overwritten, Mille was ruling the Adventure and Tamers worlds, human and digital, by the year 2004. In this 'verse, he's mostly left Tamers timeline alone other than general scientific curiosity, but since Ryo wasn't around to stop him from taking over Adventure timeline... He's just gotten servants with Taichi and Daisuke's powers by manipulation instead of cloning brainwashed cyborgs. He hasn't turned the planet into a bombed wasteland, but he_ could _._

 _The fact that cities haven't been stepped on... in a while doesn't mean that Millenniummon's return isn't Godzilla Threshold. The other Chosen Children don't remember anything but Mugendramon, but they can ask Gennai what happened._

 _The 02 kids in the anime had the luxury of scruples and were volunteers. The Adventure crew were drafted and are generally busy not dying._

* * *

"Sure you're not overcomplicating this?" Daisuke wondered, sitting down on the park bench next to Ken since it was obvious that this was going to take awhile and Ken wouldn't be free to practice with him until the younger kid was doing better.

He didn't mind: Ryo needed a lot of help, and anyone who understood that V-mon was the best partner ever was a friend of Daisuke's. Also, none of this would have happened if Ryo hadn't protected Ken when he was in the Digital World.

Miyako had asked Daisuke if he was _really_ sure he knew anything about the real Ken at all, when he hadn't even met him before he got taken over, but Wormmon was Ken's partner, so of course he would have noticed if Ken wasn't acting like the real Ken? That was just _duh_.

It was pretty obvious that Ken felt different the moment that Millenniummon was out of him: Daisuke knew it wasn't his imagination when he'd asked Hikari and she sensed the same thing.

Daisuke wasn't quite sure what Hikari sensed, but what he'd sensed was that Ken-Ken liked Ryo but only _wanted_ Daisuke.

That meant all the desire for Ryo in there was Millenniummon's. "You both want to be partners," Daisuke told Ryo. "You both want it a lot. That's why it'll happen."

Now Ken was looking at him funny. "What?" Daisuke wondered.

"I thought you didn't like Millenniummon."

"I _don't_ , but that's between him and me. I'm not going to leave Ryo all tied up in knots because of it." Daisuke frowned at Ken. He might not be the Child of Kindness, but he wasn't a jerk. "It's my Crest, so I know what I'm talking about. Don't listen to Miyako. I know that sometimes things are just impossible, but that's _your_ Crest. _And_ partners is Destiny," he added. "Wallace owes the old Millenniummon for infecting Chocomon with that virus and the one pretending to be Ken for fixing Chocomon. The sooner you guys get that destined happy ending, the sooner everyone can stop worrying about him breaking out another virus or turning the golden spires evil or something." He noticed that Chibimon was holding up his arms and lifted him off Ken's lap to put him on his own. There weren't any people nearby, but still too many for Chibimon to say his name to get his attention.

"That's what I was thinking, but I don't know if I should be thinking about it that way, when he's my partner," Ryo said. Looking at Ken, he asked, "Are you _really_ sure you're okay?"

"Really, Ryo, I'm fine. It's actually surprising. I think he wanted to be sure that if I was temporarily back in control, perhaps because I got hit with a digivice or some new Chosen Child's power, no one would notice anything suspicious."

"Wouldn't not remembering that day be suspicious?" Ryo wondered.

Daisuke frowned. "Didn't anyone do that for you? The week after you got back, someone thought that maybe they should use the digivices on _all_ the Chosen Children, just to be sure no one else was like Ken. I was bouncing off the walls! Taichi was trying to make everyone knock it off, or at least be careful, after Hikari started glowing and passed out. Jou said that the power of the digivices was still _power_ , and Leomon was able to digivolve to Ultimate a few times after being purified by the digivices twice."

Ken blushed. "Daisuke and I were hugging people, but Takeru…"

"Takeru was a _jerk_ until it wore off. Miyako was worried about what it would do to her, after she was the one to figure out that it was intensifying Ken's crest power, mine too, but she was fine compared to Takeru."

"I hope it doesn't make me act like a jerk," Ryo said. "Because I think I need to ask you guys to do it. He merged with me that time, you saw it. The Dark Seed was supposed to get me, not Ken."

"Your crest power doesn't make you glow and pass out, does it?" Daisuke asked, just to be sure. Taichi was really mad.

Ryo shrugged. "No idea: I didn't have a crest." Or a digivice.

"Miracles," Ken said. "I looked – he looked it up. It's as powerful as mine, Hikari's and Wallace's. The power comes from the Chosen Child, not the crest: you were using it when you fought Millenniummon. Was there anything strange that happened to you?"

"Other than beating a god the other Chosen Children couldn't?" Even after they had Omegamon to call on? _That_ was weird.

The first time, what _hadn't_ been weird? It was Ryo's first time in the Digital World and everything.

The second time, Taichi was frozen and Ken wasn't, but after Ken fought the first couple of Millenniummon's minions and it was clear Millenniummon didn't take him seriously at all, that explained why Ken was spared, right?

Instead of begging the question of why Taichi was frozen and Ryo wasn't, or why Millenniummon hadn't done the same thing to _both_ of them that he did to Taichi. Now, Ryo knew that Ken was spared because Ryo had needed someone fighting in the other dimension Millenniummon split the Digital World into. His bond with Millenniummon had protected Ken too, because Ryo needed Ken.

The third time? When all of the Chosen Children who defeated Apocalymon were fine, and Ryo was pulled into the Chosen Children tournament even though the other Chosen were right, and he didn't even have a digivice? It wasn't like he would have felt insulted by being left out, if anything it was an insult to Ken that Ryo was there and Ken wasn't. Not that Ryo wanted Ken there: he wished _both_ of them could have been left out, it had only been a few days since they got back from fighting Millenniummon.

Honestly, losing to Mimi had been a relief because then he could have just hung out with Gennai, Wormmon and V-mon until the portal opened again and they could all go home, but she'd felt bad about the fact she had such a huge advantage in their fight because she had a partner and he didn't and had given him a second chance, and he didn't know how to tactfully decline. _That_ hadn't exactly helped the people who thought he'd only been invited in the first place because the Odaiba Chosen Children owed him one.

He'd been kind of stuck anyway, hadn't he? When that was the entire point of the tournament.

The whole deception hadn't made any sense: no one would set up a big lie without a reason, would they? What could the reason possibly be?

"I haven't felt right since the end of the tournament," Ryo said, hands in his pockets. "I know Millenniummon was asleep during the tournament, but he has minions. One of the fake evil Digimon said the whole thing was happening because the Four Holy Beasts didn't understand love, so I have to wonder if that was one of his spies. If they knew the Four Holy Beasts were counting on me to beat Millenniummon again, it would make sense for the Digimon still loyal to Millenniummon to try something."

Ken looked at him with sympathetic eyes, holding Wormmon in his lap. "You've had a lot of shocks, one after the other. If this will help, then we'll do it."

Daisuke nodded when Ken glanced at him. "As long as your power doesn't tire you out like Hikari's. Maybe it'll help?"

"What do you mean?" Ryo asked.

"When we purify you, it might let you call in our powers. The Digital World draws on data from all over the world," Ken explained. "Some of the Crests – especially Miyako's and Daisuke's – didn't seem like virtues, but they're not based on Japanese virtues. My crest is Caritas: Daisuke's is Eros. Sora, Jou and Yamato have the Crests of Storge, Agape and Philios. Destiny didn't make sense as a crest either because Destiny is an outside force shaping someone's life, but Wallace's crest is Wyrd, which is a kind of Destiny that's inescapable because it's not something from outside, it's _you_ and what kind of person you are. What kind of person you're going to become, and the path you have to walk because of it, to be true to yourself. That's why his power summoned his partners as soon as he made contact with the Digital World, because becoming Gummymon and Chocomon's partner was something that would come true because they were already connected. Wyrd means both 'inescapable fate' and 'the power to control fate. Sorry, I know it's…"

"Complicated? No it's not," Daisuke said. "If someone else is making you do something, then you don't have to do it if you can get out of it, but if you make a promise, then you have to stick to it. Free will isn't doing stuff randomly, it's doing what _you_ want. Like that Beowulf guy – he could have just not been a hero, but he _was_ a hero, so he was stuck 'cause people needed him. Or like how Wormmon and I are going to have a restaurant!"

Ken grinned and had suppress a laugh. "Well, Wormmon's cooking _is_ really good, but I don't know if that's the same thing, Daisuke…"

"Your cooking is great!" Chibimon insisted, waving his arms. "You guys _have_ to share it with the world!"

Daisuke shushed his partner, although the effect was lessened by the fact he was holding that finger to grinning lips, really happy about the compliment.

"He may have a point," Ryo joined in, because once Wormmon was feeling a little better he'd cooked Ryo a welcome-back dinner, but then his eyes widened. "Is that why Millenniummon told Diablomon to make sure that Wallace couldn't come fight him along with you?" _Kindness_? No wonder Millenniummon hadn't seen Ken as a threat, but a crest that might force partners together? "So he didn't have to start really being my partner?"

Ken looked down at Wormmon sadly. "When you think about it, Ryo… I think the part of Millenniummon that wanted to protect you was trying to keep the two of you _apart_. He captured the other Chosen Children, but then he just left you alone when Agumon summoned you to fight him? Just like Tailmon didn't capture Hikari, even though that would have meant they'd spend time together. He didn't freeze you like Taichi and just come and pick you up when we fought him. There was only one Dark Seed and if it was thrown just a little earlier or later I wouldn't have seen it coming. Maybe both sides of Millenniummon wanted you to stay away from him."

"…Yeah," Ryo agreed, hanging his head. "Parts of him don't want me around."

"Not like that!" Ken said, shaking his head. "You know what Millenniummon did to Digimon! He was incapable of anything but cruelty: that was part of why I had to fight him, even if I wasn't any good compared to Taichi and I'd just get Digimon hurt. I think the part of Millenniummon that was your partner knew that if he got his hands on you, he'd hurt you."

Daisuke shuddered, then stood up and grabbed his soccer bag. "Come on, we should find somewhere indoors." There were too many people around for them to pull out their digivices and shoot glowing beams of light at somebody. "Maybe we can go over to Taichi and Hikari's place."

* * *

"So… feel any different?" Taichi asked.

Ryo looked down at his hands. "I'm not glowing, and I don't think I'm about to fall over."

"Any symptoms?" Koushiro asked, looking at Ryo with his fingers already on his laptop keys. "You just absorbed a certain amount of power, and how you earth that charge might tell us something about your crest."

"Have you tried to purify anyone without a crest for a control group?" Ryo asked, shrugging. "I'm really not feeling anything weird."

"We have, but trying to create a control group without crest powers is complicated by the fact that even though abilities don't run in families, overall strength may."

Taichi groaned. "I haven't been able to pry my Mom out of the kitchen. What if she feeds any of that to Hikari? She's already sick!"

"Is that why you brought a bucket of cold water?" Ryo asked him, looking at where it stood next to the mass of blankets Taichi had pulled from the hall closet and topped off with cold medicine.

"Well, I can't throw it on my mom," the legendary leader of the Chosen Children said. "She'll kill me. Also you brought Daisuke."

"What's wrong with Daisuke?"

"There's a possibility the affinity of the Chosen Child may affect the precise nature of their output. Well," Koushiro said, correcting himself, "It definitely does, which is why the physical crests can be designed to anticipate the output of certain types of power and help turn that particular energy into the power of evolution. As of yet I don't really have enough data for how channeling that power through another Chosen Child affects the energy, although Taichi and Yamato were able to harness power that came from Hikari and Takeru and turn it into digivolution energy."

"And Ken and Daisuke have… huggy crests," Ryo realized. "Wait, Agumon told me about that! If Hikari's power let her brother's partner evolve, then what if what you just did affected _my_ partner?"

"The risk is negligible," Koushiro told him, motioning for the others to calm down. "He's already evolved to the point that another evolution couldn't really make matters worse. If anything, we might get lucky, and a different evolution might have different abilities that are easier to overcome." If Millenniummon lost the time/dimension powers that let him cheat, it might actually be a fair fight.

"You knew!" Yamato realized. "You knew that could happen and you didn't say anything?"

"What if Ryo _was_ possessed?" Koushiro asked him. "I couldn't discuss it in front of him without MoonMillenniummon being forewarned, and I didn't want to talk to Taichi about it behind Ryo's back since apparently I did that before and I really don't like the entire concept. Anyway, it was only a theory. Doing this to everyone else would have used up the majority of the power stored in our digivices, so I _seriously_ doubt we had enough of a charge to digivolve MoonMillenniummon."

Ken sighed. "Then we probably didn't have enough to influence him, either. Especially since only a percentage of the energy was all that likely to transfer through his link with Ryo."

Everyone stared at him. Ken blushed, looking embarrassed. "I remember thinking like a genius who understood all of this for a few years, I know how to have ideas."

"You said 'influence,' not purify," Koushiro said, looking a little taken aback.

"If evil Digimon get to do it?" Ken asked them. "I'm not Takeru, but Millenniummon would deserve it." Wormmon nodded.

"If I had a Light Gear I'd stick it into Devimon in a heartbeat," Yamato agreed. "And he was just a servant of darkness, not the boss."

"…Hey, aren't we supposed to be the good guys?" Taichi asked them, looking around the room. Someone, anyone? He looked at his sister, propped up on pillows, when no one else gave him any support. Tailmon gave Taichi a look, because she certainly hoped he wasn't expecting _her_ to feel bad about someone trying to do something to the Digimon who handed her and _Hikari_ over to Vamdemon.

"Mugendramon… those poor Numemon," Hikari said, and smiled, shaking her head. Her big brother was out of luck with this crowd.

"How am _I_ supposed to get my partner to tell the difference between right and wrong when I'm willing to do whatever it takes?" Ryo wondered, looking at Hikari. Not just him: even the heroes. Even the Child of Light?

"Doing the right thing just because it's the right thing: I don't know if _he'll_ ever understand that," Wormmon said, glaring around at every corner of the room, probably to increase his odds of actually glaring at wherever MoonMillenniummon was watching from. It might have been more effective if Wormmon was less adorable. "But Ryo is Ken's friend, and doing whatever it takes to help a friend or a partner, that's not hard to understand, right?"

"Maybe," Ryo said, finding himself smiling.

The little bug smiled back at him. "When Ken's friends are happy, Ken is happy! And when Ken is happy I'm happy. I don't like Millenniummon, but you're Ken's friend, Ryo, so I'll have to put up with it."

"Wow," Ryo said. "That means a lot, when he got between you and Ken." He walked forward and leaned down to pat Wormmon on the head. "No wonder you're the partner of the Child of Kindness."

Wormmon's antennae stood on end. "Oh, do you really think so?" His little feet rose up to touch his cheeks as he blushed happily, dancing around a bit on Ken's lap. "Ken is the nicest partner ever, do you really think I deserve Ken?"

"Of course."

"Oh, you're the nicest, except for Ken and V-mon!" Ryo found himself with a bug with stickly little legs attached to the front of his shirt, looking up at him with big eyes. "And Daisuke, but we missed you, Ryo! You and V-mon were my first friends. I wanted friends before, but…" Ryo wrapped his arms around the sad bug. "I found my partner Ken, and then I had friends! I got to stay with Ken in the real world, when everyone else but Gummymon was separated from their partners. So I know I'm lucky, that I get to be so happy, and I know you'll be happy someday, Ryo." Wormmon reached up with one of his little legs to pat Ryo's cheek.

"He didn't have friends before you…" Even if that was probably because he'd killed anyone who dared speak to him in a familiar fashion. "He was a little upset that you were upset. I know it. That you weren't going to want to play with him anymore. So, so maybe…" Maybe he _could_ see some value in having friends, in what came from being kind to people. "It could happen?" It wasn't impossible, right?

Just very, very difficult, like any other battle against Millenniummon.

But this time, if he won, Millenniummon wouldn't just come back to life and try again. This time, if he won, it would be over. The worlds would be safe and he'd have his own partner.

"You're right, Wormmon," he said, hugging his friend's partner. "I will. Someday."


End file.
